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Updated: June 14, 2025
"Hello, Josiah," hailed Jed, genially. "How's the president of the Western Union these days?" The boy grinned bashfully and opined the magnate just mentioned was "all right." Then he added: "Is Mr. Babbitt here? Mr. Bearse Mr. Gabe Bearse is over at the office and he said he saw Mr. Babbitt come in here." "Yes, he's here. Want to see him, do you?" "I've got a telegram for him." Mr.
Gabriel Bearse was not a summer visitor, but a "native," that is, an all-the-year-round resident of Orham, and, as his fellow natives would have cheerfully testified, it took much more than windmills to arouse HIS energy. He had not halted to look at the mills.
Mr. Gabriel Bearse was happy. The prominence given to this statement is not meant to imply that Gabriel was, as a general rule, unhappy. Quite the contrary; Mr. Bearse's disposition was a cheerful one and the cares of this world had not rounded his plump shoulders.
Most of the townspeople liked him, but almost all considered him a joke, an oddity, a specimen to be pointed out to those of the summer people who were looking for "types." A few, like Mr. Gabriel Bearse, who distinctly did NOT understand him and who found his solemn suggestions and pointed repartee irritating at times, were inclined to refer to him in these moments of irritation as "town crank."
Miss Hunniwell wrinkled her dainty upturned nose and burst into a trill of laughter. "Oh, that's lovely," she declared, "and just like you, besides. And do you think Gabe Bearse will go back into the other room when he sees it?" Jed looked dreamily over his spectacles at the sign. "I don't know," he drawled.
"Yes, but Why, confound it, anybody who sees it there will think it is the other room that's private, won't they?" Jed nodded. "I'm in hopes they will," he said. "You're in hopes they will! Why?" "'Cause if Gabe Bearse thinks that room's private and that he don't belong there he'll be sartin sure to go there; then maybe he'll give me a rest." He selected a new brush and went on with his painting.
I know what Gab Bearse Much obliged for that name, Jed; 'Gab's' the best name on earth for that critter I know what Gab came in here to talk about. 'Twas about me and my bein' put on the Exemption Board, of course. That was it, wan't it? Um-hm, I knew 'twas. I was the 'this' in his 'this and that. And Phin Babbitt was the 'that'; I'll bet on it. Am I right?" Winslow nodded.
So I guess likely we'll let Lute sign on and wait till later to find out whether he's an able seaman or a a " He hesitated, groping for a simile. Mr. Winslow supplied one. "Or a leak," he suggested. "Yes, that's it. Say, have you heard anything from Leander Babbitt lately?" "No, nothin' more than Gab Bearse was reelin' off last time he was in here. How is Phin Babbitt? Does he speak to you yet?"
Bearse and his coterie that "Shavings" Winslow was "next door to loony." He cooked a breakfast, but how he cooked it or of what it consisted he could not have told. The next day he found the stove-lid lifter on a plate in the ice chest. Whatever became of the left-over pork chop which should have been there he had no idea. Babbie came dancing in at noon on her way home from school.
But Captain Sam Hunniwell had once said, and Orham public opinion agreed with him, that Gabe Bearse was never happy unless he was talking. Now here was Gabriel, not talking, but walking briskly along the Orham main road, and yet so distinctly happy that the happiness showed in his gait, his manner and in the excited glitter of his watery eye.
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