To those residents of Mason's Corner whose names have been given, whose
homes have been described and some whose personal peculiarities have
been portrayed, must be added a late arrival. The new-comer whose advent
in town during Christmas week had caused so much discussion at the
rehearsal in the old red schoolhouse, and whose liberality in providing
a hot supper with all the fixings for the sleighing party from Mason's
Corner, when it arrived at the Eagle Hotel at Eastborough Centre, had
won, at a bound, the hearts of the majority of the younger residents of
Mason's Corner. The village gossips wondered who he was, what he was,
what he came for, and how long he intended to stay. If these questions
had been asked of him personally, he might have returned answers to the
first three questions, but it would have been beyond his power to have
answered the fourth inquiry at that time. But the sayings and doings of
certain individuals, and a chain of circumstances not of his own
creation and beyond his personal control, conspired to keep him there
for a period of nearly four months. During that time certain things were
said and done, certain people were met and certain events took place
which changed the entire current of this young man's future life, which
shows plainly that we are all creatures of circumstance and that a man's
success or failure in life may often depend as much or even more upon
his environment than upon himself.




CHAPTER III.

THE CONCERT IN THE TOWN HALL.