"What did he say, Daddy?" asked Cynthia, as Wetherell stood staring after
the flitting buggy in bewilderment.

"I haven't the faintest idea, Cynthia," answered her father, and they
walked on.

"Don't you know who 'Bije' is?

"No," said her father, "and I don't care."

It was almost criminal ignorance for a man who lived in that part of the
country not to know Bijah Bixby of Clovelly, who was paying a little
social visit to Coniston that day on his way home from the state
capital,--tending, as it were, Jethro's flock. Still, Wetherell must be
excused because he was an impractical literary man with troubles of his
own. But how shall we chronicle Bijah's rank and precedence in the Jethro
army, in which there are neither shoulder-straps nor annual registers? To
designate him as the Chamberlain of that hill Rajah, the Honorable Heth
Sutton, would not be far out of the way. The Honorable Heth, whom we all
know and whom we shall see presently, is the man of substance and of
broad acres in Clovelly: Bijah merely owns certain mortgages in that
town, but he had created the Honorable Heth (politically) as surely as
certain prime ministers we could name have created their sovereigns. The
Honorable Heth was Bijah's creation, and a grand creation he was, as no
one will doubt when they see him.

Bijah--as he will not hesitate to tell you--took Heth down in his pocket
to the Legislature, and has more than once delivered him, in certain
blocks of five and ten, and four and twenty, for certain considerations.
The ancient Song of Sixpence applies to Bijah, but his pocket was