"Well, come to think," said Bolton; "I don't know's you'd had time to
heard. He hain't been here a great while."
"Is he--satisfactory?" asked Miss Kilburn, feeling how far from
satisfactory the Victory was, and formulating an explanatory apology to the
committee in her mind.
"Oh yes, he's satisfactory enough, as far forth as that goes. He's
talented, and he's right up with the times. Yes, he's progressive. I guess
they got pretty tired of Mr. Rogers, even before he died; and they kept the
supply a-goin' till--all was blue, before they could settle on anybody. In
fact they couldn't seem to agree on anybody till Mr. Peck come."
Miss Kilburn had got as far, in her tacit interview with the committee, as
to have offered to replace at her own expense the Victory with a Volunteer,
and she seemed to be listening to Bolton with rapt attention.
"Well, it's like this," continued the farmer. "He's progressive in his
idees, 'n' at the same time he's spiritual-minded; and so I guess he suits
pretty well all round. Of course you can't suit everybody. There's always
got to be a dog in the manger, it don't matter where you go. But if anybody
was to ask me, I should say Mr. Peck suited. Yes, I don't know but what I
should."
Miss Kilburn instantaneously closed her transaction with the committee,
removed the Victory, and had the Volunteer unveiled with appropriate
ceremonies, opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Peck.
"Peck?" she said. "Did you tell me his name was Peck?"
"Yes, ma'am; Rev. Julius W. Peck. He's from down Penobscotport way, in
Maine. I guess he's all right."
Miss Kilburn did not reply. Her mind had been taken off the monument for
the moment by her dislike for the name of the new minister, and the Victory
had seized the opportunity to get back.
Bolton sighed deeply, and continued in a strain whose diffusiveness at last
became perceptible to Miss Kilburn through her own humiliation. "There's
some in every community that's bound to complain, I don't care what you do
to accommodate 'em; and what I done, I done as much to stop their clack as
anything, and give him the right sort of a start off, an' I guess I did.
But Mis' Bolton she didn't know but what you'd look at it in the light of a
libbutty, and I didn't know but what you _would_ think I no business
to done it."
He seemed to be addressing a question to her, but she only replied with a
dazed frown, and Bolton was obliged to go on.