Perkins, hotel man and town moderator, Lem Hodges, selectman, assessor
and overseer of the poor, Nathan Elmes, likewise selectman, assessor and
overseer of the poor, and Cale Rodgers, school committee-man and
proprietor of the general store.

Madison sauntered slowly along.

"I have arrived," he said, "not at a cemetery, but at an El Dorado and a
land flowing with milk and honey."

There was a humorous pucker around the corners of Madison's eyes, as he
reviewed his two days' sojourn in Needley--spent mostly in the "office"
of the Congress Hotel beside the stove with his feet up on the wood-box.
He had never lacked company--the office stove and the spitbox filled
with sawdust was the admitted rendezvous of the chosen spirits who were
still gazing after him from the window. Morning, afternoon and evening
they congregated there, and he had been promptly admitted to membership
in the select circle. At each sitting they had discussed the spring
planting and the weather, and then inevitably, led by Hiram Higgins, had
resolved themselves into an "experience" meeting on the Patriarch--he,
Madison, as a minority leader of one, grudgingly conceding an occasional
point. The sessions had invariably ended the same way--Hiram Higgins,
with the back of his hand underneath his chin, would stroke earnestly
at his chin-whiskers, and remark:

"Well, now, Mr. Madison, 'twon't do you a mite of harm to go out there
an' see for yourself. We've kinder got to look on you as one of us, an'
there ain't no use in you sufferin' around with what ails you when there
ain't no need of it."