prosperity so confidently expected.

The air of the room is thick with smoke, for most of the men are
smoking clay or corncob pipes, but the smoke is scarcely recognizable
as that of tobacco, so largely is that expensive weed mixed with dried
sweet-fern and other herbs, for the sake of economy. Of the score or
two persons present, only two, Israel Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, are
actually drinking anything. Not certainly that they are the only ones
disposed to drink, as the thirsty looks that follow the mugs to their
lips, sufficiently testify, but because they alone have credit at the
bar. Ezra furnishes Mrs. Bingham with meal from his mill, and drinks
against the credit thus created, while Israel furnishes the landlady
with potatoes on the same understanding. There being practically
almost no money in circulation, most kinds of trade are dependent on
such arrangements of barter. Meshech Little, the carpenter, who lies
dead-drunk on the floor, his clothing covered with the sand, which it
has gathered up while he was being unceremoniously rolled out of the
way, is a victim of one of these arrangements, having just taken his
pay in rum for a little job of tinkering about the tavern.

"Meshech hain't hed a steady job sence the new meetin-haouse wuz done
las' year, an I s'pose the critter feels kinder diskerridged like,"
said Abner Rathbun, regarding the prostrate figure sympathetically.
Abner has grown an inch and broadened proportionally, since Squire
Woodbridge made him file leader of the minute men by virtue of his six
feet three, and as he stands with his back to the bar, resting his
elbows on it, the room would not be high enough for his head, but that
he stands between the cross-beams.

"I s'pose Meshech's fam'ly 'll hev to go ontew the taown," observed