ears.

It must be confessed that the Doctor had certain little peculiarities
and ways of his own which might have ruffled the down of a smoother
temper than that of the Widow Matson. He was careless and absent-
minded. In spite of her labors and complaints, he scattered his
superfluous clothing, books, and papers over his rooms in "much-admired
disorder." He gave the freedom of his house to the boys and girls of
his neighborhood, who, presuming upon his good nature, laughed at her
remonstrances and threats as they chased each other up and down the
nicely-polished stairway. Worse than all, he was proof against the
vituperations and reproaches with which she indirectly assailed him from
the recesses of her kitchen. He smoked his pipe and dozed over his
newspaper as complacently as ever, while his sins of omission and
commission were arrayed against him.

Peewawkin had always the reputation of a healthy town: and if it had
been otherwise, Dr. Singletary was the last man in the world to
transmute the aches and ails of its inhabitants into gold for his own
pocket. So, at the age of sixty, he was little better off, in point of
worldly substance, than when he came into possession of the small
homestead of his father. He cultivated with his own hands his corn-
field and potato-patch, and trimmed his apple and pear trees, as well
satisfied with his patrimony as Horace was with his rustic Sabine villa.
In addition to the care of his homestead and his professional duties,
he had long been one of the overseers of the poor and a member of the
school committee in his town; and he was a sort of standing reference in
all disputes about wages, boundaries, and cattle trespasses in his
neighborhood. He had, nevertheless, a good deal of leisure for reading,
errands of charity, and social visits. He loved to talk with his