THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE

By Joseph C. Lincoln




CHAPTER I


"I'm going up to the village," I told Dorinda, taking my cap from the
hook behind the dining-room door.

"What for?" asked Dorinda, pushing me to one side and reaching for the
dust-cloth, which also was behind the door.

"Oh, just for the walk," I answered, carelessly.

"Um-hm," observed Dorinda.

"Um-hm" is, I believe, good Scotch for "Yes." I have read that it
is, somewhere--in one of Barrie's yarns, I think. I had never been in
Scotland, or much of anywhere else, except the city I was born in, and
my college town, and Boston--and Cape Cod. "Um-hm" meant yes on the
Cape, too, except when Dorinda said it; then it might mean almost
anything. When Mother asked her to lower the window shade in the
bed-room she said "Um-hm" and lowered it. And, five minutes later, when
Lute came in, loaded to the guards with explanations as to why he had
forgotten to clean the fish for dinner, she said it again. And the
Equator and the North Pole are no nearer alike, so far as temperature