CHAPTER XI

Thus William Wetherell became established in Coniston, and was started at
last--poor man--upon a life that was fairly tranquil. Lem Hallowell had
once covered him with blushes by unfolding a newspaper in the store and
reading an editorial beginning: "We publish today a new and attractive
feature of the Guardian, a weekly contribution from a correspondent whose
modesty is to be compared only with his genius as a writer. We are
confident that the readers of our Raper will appreciate the letter in
another column signed 'W. W.'" And from that day William was accorded
much of the deference due to a litterateur which the fates had hitherto
denied him. Indeed, during the six years which we are about to skip over
so lightly, he became a marked man in Coniston, and it was voted in towns
meeting that he be intrusted with that most important of literary labors,
the Town History of Coniston.

During this period, too, there sprang up the strangest of intimacies
between him and Jethro Bass. Surely no more dissimilar men than these
have ever been friends, and that the friendship was sometimes misjudged
was one of the clouds on William Wetherell's horizon. As the years went
on he was still unable to pay off the mortgage; and sometimes, indeed, he
could not even meet the interest, in spite of the princely sum he
received from Mr. Willard of the Guardian. This was one of the clouds on
Jethro's horizon, too, if men had but known it, and he took such moneys
as Wetherell insisted upon giving him grudgingly enough. It is needless
to say that he refrained from making use of Mr. Wetherell politically,
although no poorer vessel for political purposes was ever constructed. It
is quite as needless to say, perhaps, that Chester Perkins never got to
be Chairman of the Board of Selectmen.