Evelyn Raymond
The Brass Bound Box
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664581990
Table of Contents
WHY MONTY DID NOT GO A-FISHING
WHAT THE MOON SAW IN THE CORN-FIELD
A NEIGHBORLY TRICK OF THE WIND
CHAPTER I.
LEGACY AND LEGATEE
Marsden was one of the few villages of our populous country yet left remote from any line of railway. The chief events of its quiet days were the morning and evening arrivals and departures of the mail-coach, whose driver still retained the almost obsolete custom of blowing a horn to signal his approach.
All Marsden favored the horn, it was so convenient and so—so antique! which word typified the spirit of the place. For if modest Marsden had any pride, it was in its own unchanging attitude toward modern ways and methods. So, whenever Reuben Smith's trumpet was heard, the villagers knew it was time to leave their homes along the main street and repair to the "general store and post-office" for the mail, which was their strongest connecting link with the outside world.
Occasionally, too, the coach brought a visitor to the village; though this was commonly in summer-time, when even its own stand-offishness could not wholly repel the "city boarder." After the leaves changed color, nobody went to and fro save those who "belonged," as the storekeeper, the milliner, and Squire Pettijohn, the lawyer; and it had been ten years, at least, since Reuben's four-in-hand was brought to a halt before Miss Eunice Maitland's gate. Now, on a windy day of late September, the two white horses and their two black companions were reined up there, while the trumpet gave a blast which startled the entire neighborhood.
"My