"I'll venture," said Pliny, "that there'll be more'n five hunderd old
residents a-comin' back, and where in tunket we're goin' to sleep 'em
all the committee don't know."

"Um!... G'-by, Pliny," said Scattergood, suddenly, and Pliny,
recognizing the old hardware merchant's customary and inescapable
dismissal, got up off the step and cut across diagonally to the post
office, where he could air his importance as a committeeman before an
assemblage as ready to discuss the events of the week as he was himself.

It was a momentous occasion in the life of Coldriver; a gathering of
prodigals and wanderers under home roofs; a week set aside for the
return of sons and daughters and grandchildren of Coldriver who had
ventured forth into the world to woo fortune and to seek adventure.
Preparations had been in the making for months, and the village was
resolved that its collateral relatives to the remotest generation should
be made aware that Coldriver was not deficient in the necessary "git up
and git" to wear down its visitors to the last point of exhaustion.
Pliny Pickett, chairman of numerous committees and marshal of the
parade, predicted it would "lay over" the Centennial in Philadelphia.

The greased pig was to be greasier; the barbecued ox was to be larger;
the band was to be noisier; the speeches were to be longer and more
tiresome; the firemen's races and the ball games, and the fat men's
race, and the frog race, and the grand ball with its quadrilles and
Virginia reels and "Hull's Victory" and "Lady Washington's Reel" and its
"Portland Fancy," were all to be just a little superior to anything of
the sort ever attempted in the state. Numerous septuagenarians were
resorting to St. Jacob's oil and surreptitious prancing in the barn, to