Old Ebenezer

In more than one of the sleepy neighborhoods that lay about the drowsy town of Old Ebenezer, Sam Lyman had lolled and dreamed. He had come out of the keen air of Vermont, and fo...

Lyman must long have indulged his secret study before the observation of old Buckley Lightfoot fell upon it, for, at the close of the school term a few weeks later, the teacher...

A year passed by. Caruthers dozed with his cob pipe between the fingers of his limp hand, waiting for clients whose step was not heard upon the stairs. But the office had not be...

The following afternoon when Lyman went to the office, having spent the earlier hours in the court house, to assure the Judge that he had no motions to make, and no case to be p...

Once in a long while Banker McElwin made it a policy to gather up a number of his boastful relations, reinforced by a number of friends, and then conduct the party to the house...

Lyman found favor with the company, that is, with the exception of Eva McElwin, whose position demanded a certain reserve. He had sought to engage her in conversation, and she h...

At the breakfast table the next morning old man Staggs spread himself back with a loud laugh as Lyman entered the room. His wife looked at him with sharp reproof.

Lyman found Warren almost in hysterical glee, treading air up and down the office. "Ho!" he cried, as the bridegroom entered the office. "Let me get hold of you. Ho!" he shouted...

On the following Sunday, which in fact was the day after the scene in the office, Lyman went to church. There were several churches in Old Ebenezer, but he chose the one which w...

"You are a pestiferous son-in-law," said Warren, as Lyman entered the room. "And I have taken possession of your private quarters," he added, pointing to a pile of country newsp...

An account of the marriage, written by an effusive correspondent, was published in a newspaper at the State Capital; and a few days later the same journal contained an editorial...

Lyman walked slowly down the tree-darkened lane that led to the main street of the village. Beneath a forest oak, where the desolate town cow and the stray sheep had come to see...

There came a day, and it followed the picnic, with not a week between, when Lyman's midnight scratching, done at the house of old Uncle Buckley, came out into the dazzling light...

Mr. McElwin put aside his newspaper and paced slowly up and down the room, his slippered feet falling with an emphatic pat on the carpet. His wife sat near the window, watching...

At eleven o'clock the next day, Zeb Sawyer was to meet McElwin at the bank. The hour was tolled off by a grim old clock standing high in a corner, a rare old time piece with a h...

"And I told him that he had not only insulted me, but had put an indignity upon you. I talked to him just as cool as a man could talk to anybody; we got along first rate until h...

Shortly after Sawyer took his leave, Lyman went out for a meditative stroll in the wooded land. About a mile and a half distant was a creek, with great bluffs on one side, and w...

Sawyer drove rapidly toward Spring Hill, about eight miles distant from Old Ebenezer. The land was uneven, with oak ridges, beech slopes and shell-bark hickory flats, but the ro...

The air was damp. At evening a heavy mist came with the soft June wind, and the night was dark. McElwin had gone over to the town after supper, something he rarely did alone, ha...

McElwin hastened along the hard and slippery path that ran on a ridge at the side of the road. Sometimes a low-bending bough raked across his umbrella, and once he was made to s...

Early in the evening old Jasper Staggs received a visit from Zeb Sawyer, and inasmuch as the social exchanges between them had never been particularly marked, the old man was no...

Lyman had been helping Warren with the work of putting the paper to press, and he was tired, but when he had lighted the lamp he drew the writing paper toward him, and took up a...

McElwin arose after a night of cat-naps. He was up long before breakfast. He stood at the gate, looking up and down the road; and when a peddler came along the banker hailed him...

On a Sunday morning, Lyman and Warren hired a light spring wagon and drove out through the green and romantic country that lay stretched and tumbled along the Mt. Zion road. The...

Lyman stood gazing after them as they drove away. The girl waved her hand at him, and then removing her glove, she waved it again. He saw the mother turn to her as if with a wor...

Warren argued, the old man urged and the old lady pleaded as she fanned her hot face with her apron, catching it up by the corners, but Lyman was determined to go home. Warren w...

Early the next morning Pitt and his daughter drove to town with Warren. The promise of government seeds had greatly excited the old fellow, and, three times before the breaking...

Two days later Lyman was sitting in his office, musing over a pink note from Eva, thanking him for the book, when Zeb Sawyer tapped at the door. Lyman bade him enter and he step...

A few days later, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Staggs remarked that Mrs. McElwin and her daughter were gone on a visit to friends and would be absent several weeks. Lyman did no...

"It's all right," he said, as he sat down. "I went out there and found her at the churn. I said, 'Look here, you'll drive me mad if you don't let that churn alone--I mean with t...

Lyman's book met with a favor that no one had ventured to forecast. It did not touch the public's fad-nerve; it was too close to the soil for that. It was so simple, with an art...

Lyman walked slowly across the public square. The lawyers, the clerks, the tradesmen, who had become acquainted with his habits were wont to say, as they saw him strolling about...

Lyman did not sleep much that night. Annie, cautioned by her discreet mother not to say too much, had simply told him that Eva had called and asked about him. But that was enoug...