From the clump of blackness that indicated the beginning of the West
Orham woods came a long-drawn dismal "toot"; then two shorter ones. The
committee sprang to its feet and looked interested. Sam Hardy came out
of the ticket office. The stage-driver, a sharp-looking boy of about
fourteen, with a disagreeable air of cheap smartness sticking out all
over him, left his seat in the shadow of Mr. Batcheldor's manly form,
tossed a cigarette stump away and loafed over to the vicinity of the
"depot wagon," which was backed up against the platform. Captain Eri
knocked the ashes from his pipe and put that service-stained veteran in
his pocket. The train was really "coming in" at last.

If this had been an August evening instead of a September one, both
train and platform would have been crowded. But the butterfly summer
maiden had flitted and, as is his wont, the summer man had flitted after
her, so the passengers who alighted from the two coaches that, with
the freight car, made up the Orham Branch train, were few in number and
homely in flavor. There was a very stout lady with a canvas extension
case and an umbrella in one hand and a bulging shawl-strap and a
pasteboard box in the other, who panted and wheezed like the locomotive
itself and who asked the brakeman, "What on airth DO they have such high
steps for?" There was a slim, not to say gawky, individual with a chin
beard and rubber boots, whom the committee hailed as "Andy" and welcomed
to its bosom. There were two young men, drummers, evidently, who nodded
to Hardy, and seemed very much at home. Also, there was another young
man, smooth-shaven and square-shouldered, who deposited a suit-case on
the platform and looked about him with the air of being very far from
home, indeed.

The drummers and the stout lady got into the stage. The young man with