An unusually fine-looking man was George Brayton, only his full beard and mustache, and his length and strength of limb, made him seem at least three years older than he really was.

Perhaps Effie Dryer would have been less afraid of him if she had known that he was but twenty-three, hardly more than four years older than herself.

It was not so easy as the reverend doctor could have wished, however, for him to look dignifiedly down upon a man who overtopped him by a head and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds of clear bone and muscle.

An evil-disposed person might have added:

“And who had forgotten more before he left college than the Academy principal had ever known in all his born days.”

That was a thing, however, which Dr. Dryer could hardly have imagined of any human being,[Pg 135] even while he half-scornfully admitted his new assistant’s greater familiarity with the chemical apparatus and “all that new-fangled trash.”

Brayton had given a decidedly vivid account of Zeb’s valorous behavior on the road, but he had failed to repeat that young worthy’s exact statement of the relations between himself and “old Sol.”

Effie knew very well that he was keeping back something, but he was altogether too new an acquaintance to ask any questions of, and she was compelled to smother her curiosity in a general “wonder” what it could be that made Mr. Brayton’s face look so very much as if he were trying not to laugh.

As for Mrs. Dryer, that lady smiled all the evening on the handsome newcomer, and every time she smiled it seemed to cost her more of an effort. In fact, before the evening was over, George Brayton had one thoroughly rooted enemy in Ogleport, and, when the doctor and his wife found themselves once more alone, the first thing that smote upon his ears was:

“Board with us? That fellow, with all his airs and graces? He board in our house? No,[Pg 136] indeed! Let him go to old Mrs. Wood’s, or to anybody that’ll take him. My advice to you is that you get rid of that kind of an assistant as soon as ever you can.”

“Why, Dorothy Jane, my dear——”

“Don’t talk to me, Mr. Dryer. Haven’t I your true interests at heart? Don’t you s’pose I can see what’s coming? It’ll be just like a young minister in a church. Everybody’ll go mad about him. All the girls’ll be setting their caps for him. All the old women’ll be inviting him to tea, so’s to give their daughters a chance. The young men’ll hate him, that’s a comfort. Such a fellow won’t have any control over the boys, neither. Why, he actually laughed twenty times this very evening.”

A very hearty and wholesome laugh, indeed, had been that of George Brayton—not at all the sort to bring upon him the enmity of the young men, but they were a part of the community which Mrs. Dr. Dryer had never very thoroughly understood, and it might be she was as much mistaken about them now as she had been in her younger days, if that sort of woman ever really has any.

[Pg 137]The next morning dawned peacefully enough upon the sleepy-looking homes of Ogleport, but there was a general sense of insecurity pervading the entire community. Perhaps, if anybody had succeeded in expressing the common feeling, it would have been a “Wonder where Zeb Fuller won’t turn up next?”

Old Mr. Parker came down from the East hill in the middle of the forenoon, full of a wrathfully determined investigation of the raid on his orchard during the day before.

He listened with half incredulous amazement to the account the miller gave him of Zeb’s rescue of Dr. Dryer’s cows, and thus responded:

“Brother Todderley, if that’s true I begin to have my doubts. I don’t see how any apple tree in these parts could well be robbed if Zeb Fuller wasn’t there. It doesn’t seem to stand to reason, somehow.”

“Squire Parker,” replied the miller, “there’s worse boys in these parts than Deacon Fuller’s son. He saved my life the other day, and I believe he’s got the making of a great man in him.”

“There he is, now!” exclaimed Parker, pointing[Pg 138] to a group of boys gathered at the mill-dam. “I’d like to know what mischief’s on foot this time.”

“You won’t learn by asking,” said the miller, but his friend exclaimed:

“Anyhow, I’m going to take a look at that crowd of boys.”

As they approached, Zeb arose from the log on which he had been sitting and greeted them ceremoniously.

“Good-morning, Mr. Todderley. Glad to see you, Mr. Parker; I was thinking of coming to see you.”

“To see me?”

“Yes,” said Zeb; “I was going to ask if you had any sweet apples to sell.”

“You young rascal, what do you know about my apples?”

“Your apples?” cried Zeb, with a surprised air. “Why, has anything happened to them? That was one thing I meant to speak about if I came to see you. I noticed the other day that you are careless about them. I’m afraid you’ve left ’em out over night, hanging on the trees. Have any of ’em run away?”

[Pg 139]“Run away!”

“That’s it. I was afraid it would be so,” moralized Zeb. “Just like old Sol Dryer’s cows. There’s nothing sure in this world, Mr. Parker. Nothing but death and taxes.”

“Brother Todderley!” exclaimed the angry old farmer, “I believe he knows all about it. I’ll go right and see his father, at once. I don’t believe a word of that cow business—not a word of it.”

“Look at his eye, Brother Parker,” argued the miller, as he hurried to keep pace with his longer-legged friend. “Look at his eye. Didn’t get that fighting with your apples. No use, Parker. Look at his eye.”

“Eye! Eye!” exclaimed Parker. “What............