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The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful. One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others notably, Betty Graham.
But this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will surely go next week after the hayin's over as soon as the ice is in the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never will. So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a microscope.
"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s; that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to settle in Radville. I believe they came from somewhere round Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago.
By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville. Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near Philadelphia.
Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the business.
So Betty was gone herself, I believe, no less surprised and incredulous than the rest of us. Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his new model and much preoccupied with that.
No one has ever been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river, break for the hills.
Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum, and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville, examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it thus demonstrating his confidence.
So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a friend in New York, who'll look into it for me." He was silent for a little. "Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly. "Why do you ask?" "I saw him this evening. She told me his name, but was otherwise inhumanly reticent." "For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale of the first family of Radville.
His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared. Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a Radville store than he did.
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