“Oh, she’s a jewel, that woman. But Cornelius’s father, old Judge Chapman, who built that enormous place and the stables and rode out in a carriage and pair long after he had two automobiles, just because he enjoyed the dirt roads and said automobiles puked the air (how right he was, by the way)—I think perhaps he was resented at first, and then the town got to be proud of him. He was the town aristo. Yes, they have been absorbed. I think one could say that. And there are others. A lot of professors settled here for the summers—Jameses, people like them. They fitted in right away. They had the Bostonian contempt for ostentation. They were as tight with their money as the natives, and went around in old corduroys and battered duck hats and sneakers.” Eben looked amused. “Why, when I was a boy only the locals looked washed—it was rather non-U not to look like a tramp.”

He pulled himself to his feet and called, “Mrs. Goodnow, about time we had a drink,” and as Mrs. Goodnow, looking very respectable in a flowered print, her gray hair piled up on her head, came to the door, she was introduced, and Eben asked her, “What are your opinions about summer people, Mrs. Goodnow? The Websters here are writing a chapter for Jem about them.”

Mrs. Goodnow was not to be drawn. She pursed her mouth. “Same as anybody else. Some are decent. Some aren’t. Some drink. Some don’t. Some’s honest. Some ain’t. What shall I bring in, Mr. Fifield?”

“Oh, the usual—ice … and glasses … peanuts if you find any around. We’ll take it from there.

“Mrs. Goodnow thinks I’m going to hell because I drink a half a bottle of scotch during the evening. I tell her an old man has the privilege to do what he damn well pleases as long as the only person hurt is himself.”

“It can’t be easy to find a housekeeper,” Sally said. “Doesn’t she get lonely?”

“Her family is over in Marlow—a half hour’s drive. And then she was fond of Olive. Olive saw to it that she, then Molly Badger, got through high school. Helped with school clothes, that sort of thing. When her husband got killed at the sawmill, she came here to work. We’re bound together by a long past, Mrs. Webster.”

“So you see, it does happen.”

“Yes, but don’t forget I’m the local boy who made good. I’m one of theirs.” He sighed.

“You should write the history!” Sally said warmly as he took the tray of glasses from Mrs. Goodnow and brought out two bottles from a cupboard by the fireplace, and for a moment the talk was interrupted while glasses were filled.