It was in the flush and glow of a gorgeous sunset that you might have
seen the dark form of the Pitkin farm-house rising on a green hill
against the orange sky.

The red house, with its overhanging canopy of elm, stood out like an old
missal picture done on a gold ground.

Through the glimmer of the yellow twilight might be seen the stacks of
dry corn-stalks and heaps of golden pumpkins in the neighboring fields,
from which the slow oxen were bringing home a cart well laden with farm
produce.

It was the hour before supper time, and Biah Carter, the deacon's hired
man, was leaning against a fence, waiting for his evening meal; indulging
the while in a stream of conversational wisdom which seemed to flow all
the more freely from having been dammed up through the labors of the day.

[Illustration: Biah]

Biah was, in those far distant times of simplicity a "mute inglorious"
newspaper man. Newspapers in those days were as rare and unheard of as
steam cars or the telegraph, but Biah had within him all the making of a
thriving modern reporter, and no paper to use it on. He was a walking
biographical and statistical dictionary of all the affairs of the good
folks of Mapleton. He knew every piece of furniture in their houses, and
what they gave for it; every foot of land, and what it was worth; every
ox, ass and sheep; every man, woman and child in town. And Biah could
give pretty shrewd character pictures also, and whoever wanted to inform
himself of the status of any person or thing in Mapleton would have done
well to have turned the faucet of Biah's stream of talk, and watched it