In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence
could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot Bascom.
That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home duties,
when overborne by press of public service, was true. When Diadema Bascom
wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked, or the pigs fed,
she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk.

All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One
Show had, therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden
and unambitious persons who tied themselves to their own
wood-piles or haying-fields.

These were the bulletins issues:--

The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field,
in the same place where the old one had been,--the old one,
viewed with awe for five years by all the village small boys.

The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be,
had arrived and gone to the tavern.

An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed!

The elephant had stepped through the floor!!

The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come!

And the "Cheriot"!!

This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill,