Squire Phin

The village sounds in Palermo that sleepy afternoon were only the “summer snorin’s,” as Marriner Amazeen used to say. There was the murmur of flies buzzing lazily around some ba...

A GRIMY, wrinkled and slouchy elephant, pudging ahead and straining at his rusty harness, followed by eight horses plodding two and two, was drawing a train of vehicles whose ou...

When Marriner Amazeen plodded down street early next morning, he found Uncle Lysimachus Buck perched in solitary and surly state on the platform of Brickett’s store. A thick-fol...

Of the four strap-bottomed “company chairs” in Squire Look’s office, “three had spavins and the other the blind staggers,” as old Uncle Lysimachus Buck expressed it. But by dint...

It was “Figger-four” Avery who secured from Hiram Look the most information about himself for general circulation. When, after the first few days of wonderment, the attendance a...

The little crowd that followed Klebe Willard out of the Look door-yard moved slowly, for the irate skipper formed the nucleus of the group and stopped every few steps to mop at...

Micajah Dunham was pulling “six-weeks” beans in his lower lot the next afternoon when he saw two men coming across the field toward him. With hand at his forehead he soon recogn...

People came straggling up across the fields by short cuts, following lanterns that winked between the striding legs of the bearers. The nearer neighbours scuffled slowly along t...

The Squire had pulled his arm-chair into the centre of the broadest patch of sunshine that carpeted the dusty floor of his office. The light flooded his book’s pages until he al...

Hiram was on the porch in his favourite attitude, his chair tipped against the wall, his tall hat on the back of his head, his thumb hooked into the armhole of his vest. He roll...

The next morning the Squire was busy at the cook-stove at daybreak. He had joyfully turned old Aunt Rhoda over to Hiram’s _ménage_, and he relished the idea that he could resume...

By Judas,” remarked Hiram, admiringly, to Peak for the tenth time since they had observed the astonishing contretemps in the road, “I’m proud of that brother of mine. I didn’t k...

The Palermo packet, “Effort,” rocked slowly on the refuse-strewn ooze in her berth at Merrithew’s wharf, Square Harbour, her gray, weather-streaked sides rubbing at the barnacle...

“I guess we’ll stop and provender up at that first house, there, Sime,” he stated. “I’m ’bout starved, and I reckon the plugs are, too. You hold the reins a minute whilst I lay...

When Hiram turned in at the dooryard of the Look place next day it was late in the afternoon, and he was riding in the rear of a farmer’s beach waggon, his long legs dangling ov...

Squire Phin didn’t exactly understand the tableau he had beheld, and charitably refrained from mentioning to his brother how music, as rendered by Uncle Wharff, failed to soothe...

I think there’s more git-up and ginger in a fife and drum,” said Uncle Lysimachus Buck. He had cocked his ear to listen. Then he held his cane beside his lips and fingered imagi...

Squire Phineas Look, during the life of his love for Sylvena Willard, had become pretty thoroughly accustomed to having his heart affairs marked “Continued till next session,” a...

Some of the older voters in Palermo relate that once a constable obeyed the injunction to post a caucus call “in a public place” by sticking the paper on the wall under the roll...

Palermo’s town house is like a roofed dry goods box, its clapboards unpainted and weather-beaten. It is perched on the gray ledges of Cross Hill in the centre of the town in ord...

It was almost the first of the warming days of April. Muddy little brooks ran beside the highway, robins bounced along the turf, the waves in the Cove sparkled in the mellow sun...

His callers had noticed his failing strength through the winter months, his unsteady gait, the tremulous wavering of his hands when he scrabbled among the papers on his table. T...

Hiram Look was approaching Palermo village and letting his horse walk up the long Witch-Run hill. He was in the middle of the seat of a brand-new top carriage. His elbows were o...

That’s how it’s been with her ever sence she come to,” said Mrs. Arad Tolman, with a jab of her head toward the closed door of an inner room. There were moanings and cries on th...

It was August again. The flies buzzed lazily in the late afternoon hush, and the knife-nicked bench in the shade cast by Asa Brickett’s store had its accustomed row of old men,...