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This page intentionally left blank
 Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction

Galaxies are the places where gas turns into luminous stars, powered by nuclear
reactions that also produce most of the chemical elements. But the gas and stars are
only the tip of an iceberg: a galaxy consists mostly of dark matter, which we know
only by the pull of its gravity. The ages, chemical composition and motions of the
stars we see today, and the shapes that they make up, tell us about each galaxy’s
past life. This book presents the astrophysics of galaxies since their beginnings in
the early Universe. This Second Edition is extensively illustrated with the most
recent observational data. It includes new sections on galaxy clusters, gamma
ray bursts and supermassive black holes. Chapters on the large-scale structure and
early galaxies have been thoroughly revised to take into account recent discoveries
such as dark energy.
The authors begin with the basic properties of stars and explore the Milky
Way before working out towards nearby galaxies and the distant Universe, where
galaxies can be seen in their early stages. They then discuss the structures of
galaxies and how galaxies have developed, and relate this to the evolution of
the Universe. The book also examines ways of observing galaxies across the
electromagnetic spectrum, and explores dark matter through its gravitational pull
on matter and light.
This book is self-contained, including the necessary astronomical background,
and homework problems with hints. It is ideal for advanced undergraduate students
in astronomy and astrophysics.

L INDA S PARKE is a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin, and

a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

J OHN G ALLAGHER is the W. W. Morgan Professor of Astronomy at the University

of Wisconsin and is editor of the Astronomical Journal.
 Galaxies in
the Universe:
An Introduction
Second Edition

Linda S. Sparke
John S. Gallagher III
University of Wisconsin, Madison
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521855938

© L. Sparke and J. Gallagher 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2007

ISBN-13 978-0-511-29472-3 eBook (EBL)

ISBN-10 0-511-29472-7 eBook (EBL)

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85593-8 hardback

ISBN-10 0-521-85593-4 hardback

ISBN-13 978-0-521-67186-6 paperback

ISBN-10 0-521-67186-8 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls
for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

Preface to the second edition page vii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 The stars 2
1.2 Our Milky Way 26
1.3 Other galaxies 37
1.4 Galaxies in the expanding Universe 46
1.5 The pregalactic era: a brief history of matter 50
2 Mapping our Milky Way 58
2.1 The solar neighborhood 59
2.2 The stars in the Galaxy 67
2.3 Galactic rotation 89
2.4 Milky Way meteorology: the interstellar gas 95
3 The orbits of the stars 110
3.1 Motion under gravity: weighing the Galaxy 111
3.2 Why the Galaxy isn’t bumpy: two-body relaxation 124
3.3 Orbits of disk stars: epicycles 133
3.4 The collisionless Boltzmann equation 140
4 Our backyard: the Local Group 151
4.1 Satellites of the Milky Way 156
4.2 Spirals of the Local Group 169
4.3 How did the Local Group galaxies form? 172
4.4 Dwarf galaxies in the Local Group 183
4.5 The past and future of the Local Group 188

v
vi Contents

5 Spiral and S0 galaxies 191

5.1 The distribution of starlight 192
5.2 Observing the gas 206
5.3 Gas motions and the masses of disk galaxies 214
5.4 Interlude: the sequence of disk galaxies 222
5.5 Spiral arms and galactic bars 225
5.6 Bulges and centers of disk galaxies 236
6 Elliptical galaxies 241
6.1 Photometry 242
6.2 Motions of the stars 254
6.3 Stellar populations and gas 266
6.4 Dark matter and black holes 273
7 Galaxy groups and clusters 278
7.1 Groups: the homes of disk galaxies 279
7.2 Rich clusters: the domain of S0 and elliptical galaxies 292
7.3 Galaxy formation: nature, nurture, or merger? 300
7.4 Intergalactic dark matter: gravitational lensing 303
8 The large-scale distribution of galaxies 314
8.1 Large-scale structure today 316
8.2 Expansion of a homogeneous Universe 325
8.3 Observing the earliest galaxies 335
8.4 Growth of structure: from small beginnings 344
8.5 Growth of structure: clusters, walls, and voids 355
9 Active galactic nuclei and the early history of galaxies 365
9.1 Active galactic nuclei 366
9.2 Fast jets in active nuclei, microquasars, and γ -ray bursts 383
9.3 Intergalactic gas 390
9.4 The first galaxies 397

Appendix A. Units and conversions 407

Appendix B. Bibliography 411
Appendix C. Hints for problems 414
Index 421
 Preface to the second edition

This text is aimed primarily at third- and fourth-year undergraduate students of

astronomy or physics, who have undertaken the first year or two of university-level
studies in physics. We hope that graduate students and research workers in related
areas will also find it useful as an introduction to the field. Some background
knowledge of astronomy would be helpful, but we have tried to summarize the
necessary facts and ideas in our introductory chapter, and we give references to
books offering a fuller treatment. This book is intended to provide more than
enough material for a one-semester course, since instructors will differ in their
preferences for areas to emphasize and those to omit. After working through it,
readers should find themselves prepared to tackle standard graduate texts such as
Binney and Tremaine’s Galactic Dynamics, and review articles such as those in
the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Astronomy is not an experimental science like physics; it is a natural science
like geology or meteorology. We must take the Universe as we find it, and deduce
how the basic properties of matter have constrained the galaxies that happened to
form. Sometimes our understanding is general but not detailed. We can estimate
how much water the Sun’s heat can evaporate from Earth’s oceans, and indeed this
is roughly the amount that falls as rain each day; wind speeds are approximately
what is required to dissipate the solar power absorbed by the ground and the
air. But we cannot predict from physical principles when the wind will blow
or the rain fall. Similarly, we know why stellar masses cannot be far larger or
smaller than they are, but we cannot predict the relative numbers of stars that are
born with each mass. Other obvious regularities, such as the rather tight relations
between a galaxy’s luminosity and the stellar orbital speeds within it, are not
yet properly understood. But we trust that they will yield their secrets, just as
the color–magnitude relation among hydrogen-burning stars was revealed as a
mass sequence. On first acquaintance galaxy astronomy can seem confusingly
full of disconnected facts; but we hope to convince you that the correct analogy
is meteorology or botany, rather than stamp-collecting.

vii
viii Preface to the second edition

We have tried to place material which is relatively more difficult or more intri-
cate at the end of each subsection. Students who find some portions heavy going
at a first reading are advised to move to the following subsection and return later to
the troublesome passage. Some problems have been included. These aim mainly
at increasing a reader’s understanding of the calculations and appreciation of the
magnitudes of quantities involved, rather than being mathematically demanding.
Often, material presented in the text is amplified in the problems; more casual
readers may find it useful to look through them along with the rest of the text.
Boldface is used for vectors; italics indicate concepts from physics, or spe-
cialist terms from astronomy which the reader will see again in this text, or will
meet in the astronomical literature. Because they deal with large distances and
long timescales, astronomers use an odd mixture of units, depending on the prob-
lem at hand; Appendix A gives a list, with conversion factors. Increasing the
confusion, many of us are still firmly attached to the centimeter–gram–second
system of units. For electromagnetic formulae, we give a parallel-text transla-
tion between these and units of the Système Internationale d’Unités (SI), which
are based on meters and kilograms. In other cases, we have assumed that read-
ers will be able to convert fairly easily between the two systems with the aid of
Appendix A. Astronomers still disagree significantly on the distance scale of the
Universe, parametrized by the Hubble constant H0 . We often indicate explic-
itly the resulting uncertainties in luminosity, distance, etc., but we otherwise
adopt H0 = 75 km s−1 Mpc−1 . Where ages are required or we venture across
a substantial fraction of the cosmos, we use the benchmark cosmology with
 = 0.7, m = 0.3, and H0 = 70 km s−1 Mpc−1 .
We will use an equals sign (=) for mathematical equality, or for measured
quantities known to greater accuracy than a few percent; approximate equality (≈)
usually implies a precision of 10%–20%, while ∼ (pronounced ‘twiddles’) means
that the relation holds to no better than about a factor of two. Logarithms are to
base 10, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Here, and generally in the professional
literature, ranges of error are indicated by ± symbols, or shown by horizontal or
vertical bars in graphs. Following astronomical convention, these usually refer to
1σ error estimates calculated by assuming a Gaussian distribution (which is often
rather a bad approximation to the true random errors). For those more accustomed
to 2σ or 3σ error bars, this practice makes discrepancies between the results of
different workers appear more significant than is in fact the case.
This book is much the better for the assistance, advice, and warnings of our
colleagues and students. Eric Wilcots test flew a prototype in his undergraduate
class; our colleagues Bob Bless, Johan Knapen, John Mathis, Lynn Matthews, and
Alan Watson read through the text and helped us with their detailed comments;
Bob Benjamin tried to set us right on the interstellar medium. We are particularly
grateful to our many colleagues who took the time to provide us with figures or
the material for figures; we identify them in the captions. Bruno Binggeli, Dap
Hartmann, John Hibbard, Jonathan McDowell, Neill Reid, and Jerry Sellwood
 Preface to the second edition ix

re-analyzed, re-ran, and re-plotted for us, Andrew Cole integrated stellar energy
outputs, Evan Gnam did orbit calculations, and Peter Erwin helped us out with
some huge and complex images. Wanda Ashman turned our scruffy sketches
into line drawings. For the second edition, Bruno Binggeli made us an improved
portrait of the Local Group, David Yu helped with some complex plots, and Tammy
Smecker-Hane and Eric Jensen suggested helpful changes to the problems. Much
thanks to all!
Linda Sparke is grateful to the University of Wisconsin for sabbatical leave
in the 1996–7 and 2004–5 academic years, and to Terry Millar and the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Graduate School, the Vilas Foundation, and the Wisconsin
Alumni Research Foundation for financial support. She would also like to thank
the directors, staff, and students of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute (Gronin-
gen University, Netherlands), the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observato-
ries (Australian National University, Canberra), and the Isaac Newton Institute
for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge University, UK) and Yerkes Observatory
(University of Chicago), for their hospitality while much of the first edition was
written. She is equally grateful to the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory of
Canada, the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, and
the Observatories of the Carnegie Institute of Washington (Pasadena, California)
for refuge as we prepared the second edition. We are both most grateful to our
colleagues in Madison for putting up with us during the writing. Jay Gallagher
also thanks his family for their patience and support for his work on ‘The Book’.
Both of us appear to lack whatever (strongly recessive?) genes enable accurate
proofreading. We thank our many helpful readers for catching bugs in the first
edition, which we listed on a website. We will do the same for this edition, and
hope also to provide the diagrams in machine-readable form: please see links from
our homepages, which are currently at www.astro.wisc.edu/∼sparke and ∼jsg.
 1

Introduction

Galaxies appear on the sky as huge clouds of light, thousands of light-years across:
see the illustrations in Section 1.3 below. Each contains anywhere from a million
stars up to a million million (1012 ); gravity binds the stars together, so they do
not wander freely through space. This introductory chapter gives the astronomical
information that we will need to understand how galaxies are put together.
Almost all the light of galaxies comes from their stars. Our opening section
attempts to summarize what we know about stars, how we think we know it, and
where we might be wrong. We discuss basic observational data, and we describe
the life histories of the stars according to the theory of stellar evolution. Even the
nearest stars appear faint by terrestrial standards. Measuring their light accurately
requires care, and often elaborate equipment and procedures. We devote the final
pages of this section to the arcana of stellar photometry: the magnitude system,
filter bandpasses, and colors.
In Section 1.2 we introduce our own Galaxy, the Milky Way, with its charac-
teristic ‘flying saucer’ shape: a flat disk with a central bulge. In addition to their
stars, our Galaxy and others contain gas and dust; we review the ways in which
these make their presence known. We close this section by presenting some of the
coordinate systems that astronomers use to specify the positions of stars within the
Milky Way. In Section 1.3 we describe the variety found among other galaxies and
discuss how to measure the distribution of light within them. Only the brightest
cores of galaxies can outshine the glow of the night sky, but most of their light
comes from the faint outer parts; photometry of galaxies is even more difficult
than for stars.
One of the great discoveries of the twentieth century is that the Universe is not
static, but expanding; the galaxies all recede from each other, and from us. Our
Universe appears to have had a beginning, the Big Bang, that was not so far in the
past: the cosmos is only about three times older than the Earth. Section 1.4 deals
with the cosmic expansion, and how it affects the light we receive from galaxies.
Finally, Section 1.5 summarizes what happened in the first million years after the
Big Bang, and the ways in which its early history has determined what we see today.

1
2 Introduction

1.1 The stars

1.1.1 Star light, star bright . . .

All the information we have about stars more distant than the Sun has been deduced
by observing their electromagnetic radiation, mainly in the ultraviolet, visible, and
infrared parts of the spectrum. The light that a star emits is determined largely
by its surface area, and by the temperature and chemical composition – the rel-
ative numbers of each type of atom – of its outer layers. Less directly, we learn
about the star’s mass, its age, and the composition of its interior, because these
factors control the conditions at its surface. As we decode and interpret the mes-
sages brought to us by starlight, knowledge gained in laboratories on Earth about
the properties of matter and radiation forms the basis for our theory of stellar
structure.
The luminosity of a star is the amount of energy it emits per second, measured
in watts, or ergs per second. Its apparent brightness or flux is the total energy
received per second on each square meter (or square centimeter) of the observer’s
telescope; the units are W m−2 , or erg s−1 cm−2 . If a star shines with equal bright-
ness in all directions, we can use the inverse-square law to estimate its luminosity
L from the distance d and measured flux F:

L
F= . (1.1)
4π d 2

Often, we do not know the distance d very well, and must remember in subsequent
calculations that our estimated luminosity L is proportional to d 2 . The Sun’s total
or bolometric luminosity is L  = 3.86 × 1026 W, or 3.86 × 1033 erg s−1 . Stars
differ enormously in their luminosity: the brightest are over a million times more
luminous than the Sun, while we observe stars as faint as 10−4 L  .
Lengths in astronomy are usually measured using the small-angle formula.
If, for example, two stars in a binary pair at distance d from us appear separated
on the sky by an angle α, the distance D between the stars is given by

α (in radians) = D/d. (1.2)

Usually we measure the angle α in arcseconds: one arcsecond (1 ) is 1/60 of

an arcminute (1 ) which is 1/60 of a degree. Length is often given in terms of
the astronomical unit, Earth’s mean orbital radius (1 AU is about 150 million
kilometers) or in parsecs, defined so that, when D = 1 AU and α = 1 , d =
1 pc = 3.09 × 1013 km or 3.26 light-years.
The orbit of two stars around each other can allow us to determine their masses.
If the two stars are clearly separated on the sky, we use Equation 1.2 to measure the
distance between them. We find the speed of the stars as they orbit each other from
the Doppler shift of lines in their spectra; see Section 1.2. Newton’s equation for
 1.1 The stars 3

the gravitational force, in Section 3.1, then gives us the masses. The Sun’s mass,
as determined from the orbit of the Earth and other planets, is M = 2 × 1030 kg,
or 2 × 1033 g.
Stellar masses cover a much smaller range than their luminosities. The most
massive stars are around 100M . A star is a nuclear-fusion reactor, and a ball of
gas more massive than this would burn so violently as to blow itself apart in short
order. The least massive stars are about 0.075M . A smaller object would never
become hot enough at its center to start the main fusion reaction of a star’s life,
turning hydrogen into helium.

Problem 1.1 Show that the Sun produces 10 000 times less energy per unit mass
than an average human giving out about 1 W kg−1 .

The radii of stars are hard to measure directly. The Sun’s radius R = 6.96 ×
105 km, but no other star appears as a disk when seen from Earth with a normal
telescope. Even the largest stars subtend an angle of only about 0.05 , 1/20 of
an arcsecond. With difficulty we can measure the radii of nearby stars with an
interferometer; in eclipsing binaries we can estimate the radii of the two stars
by measuring the size of the orbit and the duration of the eclipses. The largest
stars, the red supergiants, have radii about 1000 times larger than the Sun, while
the smallest stars that are still actively burning nuclear fuel have radii around
0.1R .
A star is a dense ball of hot gas, and its spectrum is approximately that of a
blackbody with a temperature ranging from just below 3000 K up to 100 000 K,
modified by the absorption and emission of atoms and molecules in the star’s
outer layers or atmosphere. A blackbody is an ideal radiator or perfect absorber.
At temperature T , the luminosity L of a blackbody of radius R is given by the
Stefan–Boltzmann equation:

L = 4π R 2 σSB T 4 , (1.3)

where the constant σSB = 5.67×10−8 W m−2 K−4 . For a star of luminosity L and
radius R, we define an effective temperature Teff as the temperature of a blackbody
with the same radius, which emits the same total energy. This temperature is
generally close to the average for gas at the star’s ‘surface’, the photosphere. This
is the layer from which light can escape into space. The Sun’s effective temperature
is Teff ≈ 5780 K.

Problem 1.2 Use Equation 1.3 to estimate the solar radius R from its luminosity
and effective temperature. Show that the gravitational acceleration g at the surface
is about 30 times larger than that on Earth.
4 Introduction

Problem 1.3 The red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion has
Teff ≈ 3500 K and a diameter of 0.045 . Assuming that it is 140 pc from us, show
that its radius R ≈ 700R , and that its luminosity L ≈ 105 L  .

Generally we do not measure all the light emitted from a star, but only what
arrives in a given interval of wavelength or frequency. We define the flux per
unit wavelength Fλ by setting Fλ (λ)λ to be the energy of the light received
between wavelengths λ and λ + λ. Because its size is well matched to the
typical accuracy of their measurements, optical astronomers generally measure
wavelength in units named after the nineteenth-century spectroscopist Anders
Ångström: 1 Å = 10−8 cm or 10−10 m. The flux Fλ has units of W m−2 Å−1 or
erg s−1 cm−2 Å−1 . The flux per unit frequency Fν is defined similarly: the energy
received between frequencies ν and ν + ν is Fν (ν)ν, so that Fλ = (ν 2 /c)Fν .
Radio astronomers normally measure Fν in janskys: 1 Jy = 10−26 W m−2 Hz−1 .
The apparent brightness F is the integral over all frequencies or wavelengths:
 ∞  ∞
F≡ Fν (ν) dν = Fλ (λ) dλ. (1.4)
0 0

The hotter a blackbody is, the bluer its light: at temperature T , the peak of Fλ
occurs at wavelength

λmax = [2.9/T (K)] mm. (1.5)

For the Sun, this corresponds to yellow light, at about 5000 Å; human bodies, the
Earth’s atmosphere, and the uncooled parts of a telescope radiate mainly in the
infrared, at about 10 μm.

1.1.2 Stellar spectra

Figure 1.1 shows Fλ for a number of commonly observed types of star, arranged in
order from coolest to hottest. The hottest stars are the bluest, and their spectra show
absorption lines of highly ionized atoms; cool stars emit most of their light at red
or infrared wavelengths, and have absorption lines of neutral atoms or molecules.
Astronomers in the nineteenth century classified the stars according to the strength
of the Balmer lines of neutral hydrogen HI , with A stars having the strongest lines,
B stars the next strongest, and so on; many of the classes subsequently fell into
disuse. In the 1880s, Antonia Maury at Harvard realized that, when the classes
were arranged in the order O B A F G K M, the strengths of all the spectral lines,
not just those of hydrogen, changed continuously along the sequence. The first
large-scale classification was made at Harvard College Observatory between 1911
and 1949: almost 400 000 stars were included in the Henry Draper Catalogue and
its supplements. We now know that Maury’s spectral sequence lists the stars in
order of decreasing surface temperature. Each of the classes has been subdivided
 1.1 The stars 5

Fig. 1.1. Optical spectra of main-sequence stars with roughly the solar chemical com-
position. From the top in order of increasing surface temperature, the stars have spectral
classes M5, K0, G2, A1, and O5 – G. Jacoby et al., spectral library.

into subclasses, from 0, the hottest, to 9, the coolest: our Sun is a G2 star. Recently
classes L and T have been added to the system, for the very cool stars discovered by
infrared observers. Astronomers often call stars at the beginning of this sequence
‘early types’, while those toward the end are ‘late types’.
The temperatures of O stars exceed 30 000 K. Figure 1.1 shows that the
strongest lines are those of HeII (once-ionized helium) and CIII (twice-ionized
carbon); the Balmer lines of hydrogen are relatively weak because hydrogen is
almost totally ionized. The spectra of B stars, which are cooler, have stronger
hydrogen lines, together with lines of neutral helium, HeI. The A stars, with tem-
peratures below 11 000 K, are cool enough that the hydrogen in their atmospheres
is largely neutral; they have the strongest Balmer lines, and lines of singly ionized
metals such as calcium. Note that the flux decreases sharply at wavelengths less
than 3800 Å, this is called the Balmer jump. A similar Paschen jump appears at
wavelengths that are 32 /22 times longer, at around 8550 Å.
6 Introduction

In F stars, the hydrogen lines are weaker than in A stars, and lines of neutral
metals begin to appear. G stars, like the Sun, are cooler than about 6000 K. The
most prominent absorption features are the ‘H and K’ lines of singly ionized
calcium (CaII), and the G band of CH at 4300 Å. These were named in 1815
by Joseph Fraunhofer, who discovered the strong absorption lines in the Sun’s
spectrum, and labelled them from A to K in order from red to blue. Lines of
neutral metals, such as the pair of D lines of neutral sodium (NaI) at 5890 Å and
5896 Å, are stronger than in hotter stars.
In K stars, we see mainly lines of neutral metals and of molecules such as
TiO, titanium oxide. At wavelengths below 4000 Å metal lines absorb much of
the light, creating the 4000 Å break. The spectrum of the M star, cooler than about
4000 K, shows deep absorption bands of TiO and of VO, vanadium oxide, as well
as lines of neutral metals. This is not because M stars are rich in titanium, but
because these molecules absorb red light very efficiently, and the atmosphere is
cool enough that they do not break apart. L stars have surface temperatures below
about 2500 K, and most of the titanium and vanadium in their atmospheres is
condensed onto dust grains. Hence bands of TiO and VO are much weaker than in
M stars; lines of neutral metals such as cesium appear, while the sodium D lines
become very strong and broad. T stars are those with surfaces cooler than 1400 K;
their spectra show strong lines of water and methane, like the atmospheres of giant
planets.
We can measure masses for these dwarfs by observing them in binary sys-
tems, and comparing with evolutionary models. Such work indicates a mass
M ≈ 0.15M for a main-sequence M5 star, while M ≈ 0.08M for a sin-
gle measured L0–L1 binary. Counting the numbers of M, L, and T dwarfs in
the solar neighborhood shows that objects below 0.3M contribute little to the
total mass in the Milky Way’s thin disk. ‘Stars’ cooler than about L5 have too
little mass to sustain hydrogen burning in their cores. They are not true stars, but
brown dwarfs, cooling as they contract slowly under their own weight. Over its
first 100 Myr or so, a given brown dwarf can cool from spectral class M to L, or
even T; the temperature drops only slowly during its later life.
The spectrum of a galaxy is composite, including the light from a mixture of
stars with different temperatures. The hotter stars give out most of the blue light,
and the lines observed in the blue part of the spectrum of a galaxy such as the
Milky Way are typically those of A, F, or G stars. O and B stars are rare and so
do not contribute much of the visible light, unless a galaxy has had a recent burst
of star formation. In the red part of the spectrum, we see lines from the cooler
K stars, which produce most of the galaxy’s red light. Thus the blue part of the
spectrum of a galaxy such as the Milky Way shows the Balmer lines of hydrogen
in absorption, while TiO bands are present in the red region.
It is much easier to measure the strength of spectral lines relative to the
flux at nearby wavelengths than to determine Fλ (λ) over a large range in wave-
length. Absorption and scattering by dust in interstellar space, and by the Earth’s
 1.1 The stars 7

0
4000 4500 5000

Fig. 1.2. Spectra of an A1 dwarf, an A3 giant, and an A3 supergiant: the most luminous
star has the narrowest spectral lines – G. Jacoby et al., spectral library.

atmosphere, affects the blue light of stars more than the red; blue and red light
also propagate differently through the telescope and the spectrograph. In prac-
tice, stellar temperatures are often estimated by comparing the observed depths of
absorption lines in their spectra with the predictions of a model stellar atmosphere.
This is a computer calculation of the way light propagates through a stellar atmo-
sphere with a given temperature and composition; it is calibrated against stars for
which Fλ has been measured carefully.
The lines in stellar spectra also give us information about the surface gravity.
Figure 1.2 shows the spectra of three stars, all classified as A stars because the
overall strength of their absorption lines is similar. But the Balmer lines of the
A dwarf are broader than those in the giant and supergiant stars, because atoms
in its photosphere are more closely crowded together: this is known as the Stark
effect. If we use a model atmosphere to calculate the surface gravity of the star,
and we also know its mass, we can then find its radius. For most stars, the surface
gravity is within a factor of three of that in the Sun; these stars form the main
sequence and are known as dwarfs, even though the hottest of them are very large
and luminous.
All main-sequence stars are burning hydrogen into helium in their cores. For
any particular spectral type, these stars have nearly the same mass and luminosity,
because they have nearly identical structures: the hottest stars are the most massive,
the most luminous, and the largest. Main-sequence stars have radii between 0.1R
8 Introduction

and about 25R : very roughly,

 0.7  α
M M
R ∼ R and L ∼ L , (1.6)
M M

where α ≈ 5 for M < ∼ M , and α ≈ 3.9 for M < ∼M< ∼ 10M . For the most
>
massive stars with M ∼ 10M , L ∼ 50L  (M/M ) . Giant and supergiant
2.2

stars have a lower surface gravity and are much more distended; the largest stars
have radii exceeding 1000R . Equation 1.3 tells us that they are much brighter
than main-sequence stars of the same spectral type. Below, we will see that they
represent later stages of a star’s life. White dwarfs are not main-sequence stars,
but have much higher surface gravity and smaller radii; a white dwarf is only
about the size of the Earth, with R ≈ 0.01R . If we define a star by its property
of generating energy by nuclear fusion, then a white dwarf is no longer a star
at all, but only the ashes or embers of a star’s core; it has exhausted its nuclear
fuel and is now slowly cooling into blackness. A neutron star is an even smaller
stellar remnant, only about 20 km across, despite having a mass larger than the
Sun’s.

Further reading: for an undergraduate-level introduction to stars, see D. A. Ostlie

and B. W. Carroll, 1996, An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics (Addison-
Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts); and D. Prialnik, 2000, An Introduction to
the Theory of Stellar Structure and Evolution (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK).

The strength of a given spectral line depends on the temperature of the star
in the layers where the line is formed, and also on the abundance of the various
elements. By comparing the strengths of various lines with those calculated for
a hot gas, Cecelia Payne-Gaposhkin showed in 1925 that the Sun and other stars
are composed mainly of hydrogen. The surface layers of the Sun are about 72%
hydrogen, 26% helium, and about 2% of all other elements, by mass. Astronomers
refer collectively to the elements heavier than helium as heavy elements or metals,
even though substances such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen would not normally
be called metals.
There is a good reason to distinguish hydrogen and helium from the rest of
the elements. These atoms were created in the aftermath of the Big Bang, less
than half an hour after the Universe as we now know it came into existence;
the neutrons and protons combined into a mix of about three-quarters hydrogen,
one-quarter helium, and a trace of lithium. Since then, the stars have burned
hydrogen to form helium, and then fused helium into heavier elements; see the
next subsection. Figure 1.3 shows the abundances of the commonest elements in
the Sun’s photosphere. Even oxygen, the most plentiful of the heavy elements, is
over 1000 times rarer than hydrogen. The ‘metals’ are found in almost, but not
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 CHAPTER XVI—THE
DISAPPOINTING “TEST CASE” OF
SUMNER BADGER,
A “SAMPLE CITIZEN” OF PALERMO
There once was a Quaker, Orasmus Nute,
With a physog. as stiff as a cowhide boot,
And he skippered a ship from Georgetown, Maine,
In the ’way back days of the pirates’ reign.
And the story I tell it has to do
With Orasmus Nute and a black flag crew—
The tale of the upright course he went
In the face of a certain predicament.
—Ballad of “Orasmus Nute.”

T
here was at least one secret in his life that “Fig-ger-Four”
Avery kept. He never told what inspired Imogene to make her
dash for liberty.
Squire Phin didn’t exactly understand the tableau he had beheld,
and charitably refrained from mentioning to his brother how music,
as rendered by Uncle Wharff, failed to soothe the savage breast. As
for Hiram, he did not seem to be interested enough to ask any
questions.
 Whenever he mentioned the elephant’s escapade to Peak, he
referred to the affair with a sort of grim blithesomeness.
Weeks afterward, when the first damp, swirling snow of winter
was clotting itself on the windows of the little sitting-room, he sat for
a long time, figuring in a grimy account book with a stubby lead
pencil. Every once in a while he chuckled.
“J. B. Sawtelle,” he murmured, “items: four begonies and three
geraniums mashed in front yard, one washin’ scattered hoorah-ste’-
boy—say, Sime, Imogene with a night gown on one tush and a pair
of J. B.‘s flannel drawers flyin’ distress from the other, and sheddin’
assorted articles such as found on a well-regulated clothes-line, as
she hurrooped down through the beech growth, must have been
worth double the price of a high-dive feature.”
His shoulders, hunched in the rocking-chair, shook with
suppressed mirth.
Peak, his slippered feet resting on the rail of the Franklin stove,
surveyed the shoulders and the back of Hiram’s head with scowling
disapproval.
“Some might think you relished chances to throw away money,” he
growled, with a freedom of criticism accorded the favourite. Simon
now appeared to be settled as a fixture in the showman’s household.
The old horse Joachim had died with the first frosts, and the
battered van lurched under one of the poplars, exposed to the
beating of the elements.
“What bills do you think Imogene incurred on that trip—now, jest
for a guess?” demanded Hiram, in high good humour. “I’ve been
figgerin’ it for fun.”
“It reely must be a good deal like a joke book,” observed Peak,
with fine satire.
“I can set and pee-ruse them figgers,” said Hiram, slapping the
little book on his knee and chuckling afresh, “and think how
Imogene must have looked passin’ through them way stations, as
you might say, and then think how them farmers and old maids and
women-folks run and squawked and hollered, and I get fuller of
tickles inside than a settin’ hen is full of clucks. The trouble with you
is, Sime, you ain’t got no humour.”
“Well, I’ve had mostly troubles in my time, and I ain’t got no forty
thousand dollars in the bank, either,” said Peak, sourly.
“Say, you’ve been twittin’ me about that forty thousand a good
deal lately,” snorted Hiram, glaring around over the back of the
rocking-chair. “You ain’t begretchin’ me my own, be ye?”
“Ev’ry man’s welcome to all he’s got, for all o’ me. I ain’t ever had
nothin’. I don’t ever expect to have anything. But I tell ye, a man
don’t gain in the long run by slingin’ his money around too
permiscuous.”
Hiram whirled in his chair and put his little book into his pocket.
“For more’n a fortnit now, Sime, you’ve been slurrin’ more or less.
You’ve got some kind of a duflicker’s egg that you’re settin’ on. Now
come off’n the nest and if you’ve got any cacklin’ to do, out with it
so that I can join in!”
Simon was too certain of his position as a favourite to be backed
down.
“I guess if speech of the people is correct,” he replied sturdily, “it’s
well enough known why you’re ticklin’ out when you think of
Imogene’s trip up-country.”
“F’r instance, now,” suggested Hiram, his face very hard.
Peak bent and poked the fire, sniffing disdainfully.
“F’r instance, I said,” repeated the showman.
“Say, look-a-here, Hime,” snapped Peak, whirling in his chair in his
turn, “do you think for a minute that I don’t know why you’ve been
makin’ all these trips up-country lately—and you a-sayin’ that you’ve
got to go up and transact a little more bus’ness about them
damages of Imogene’s? Now it’s about time to take some of the cuss
of the thing off’n that elephant.”
“F’r instance, I said!” yelled Hiram, standing up and clacking his
fingers imperiously under Peak’s nose. “Out with it!”
“Don’t you suppose I know that you’re courtin’ that tow-headed
widder that’s got a farm and twenty thousand dollars in the bank?
Do you think that you can fool me that’s summered and wintered
with you? You’re courtin’ her, that’s what you’re doin’, and you’re
layin’ it all off onto that elephant. Now don’t give me no more flim-
flam. ’Tain’t professional. It’s pickin’ me up for a sucker.”
The narrow eyes of the giant sparkled with suspicion and with the
jealousy of the companion who is being supplanted and realises it.
For a little while Hiram stood and glared at him and then sat down
in his chair again. Either a sense of guilt, craft or desire to placate a
friend caused him to moderate his demeanour.
“See here, Sime,” he began, lighting a cigar to keep himself in
countenance, “you have figgered the thing all wrong. You know I
ain’t a marryin’ man. You and me neither of us is. I want you to live
with me and you’re goin’ to.”
“I should think that the both of us has suffered enough from
women as it is,” grumbled the giant. “Both of us knows the other’s
troubles with ’em. And now for you to go and ram yourself right into
the bramble-bush again, and me here to advise you, makes me mad
and disgusted. I’m thinkin’ of you first of all, Hime. I ain’t selfish. But
I can see jest how it’s goin’ to be: you’re goin’ to git hitched and
then the first thing she’ll do will be to put the spittoon in the
woodshed and kick me out-doors. I thought you knowed more than
to do it—I honest thought so.”
Peak bowed his head in grief.
 “In my whole life long I never was judged right yet by any human
bein’,” wailed Hiram. “And now here you go off the handle jest like
the rest. You know what Nymp’ Bodfish done to me. You know what
I propose to do to Nymp’ Bodfish. That’s all there is to it. He wants
her and the twenty thousand, and he’d ’a’ had her a year ago if he
wasn’t hangin’ off about bein’ a farmer. He wants her to sell and put
the money into a schooner, and he’s jest as much reckonin’ on that
as on flood tide when the moon’s right. His heart is set on it. I’m
goin’ to make him the sickest man ’tween here and the North Pole.”
“There was a man once that give an elephant a chaw of
terbacker,” related Simon, “and when the doctors was tryin’ to fit
some of the least mussed-up pieces together at the hospital, he
opened his eyes and said: ‘It was a good one on the elephant,
wasn’t it?’ and then give one hiccup and died.”
“If you was only jest—well, say, ‘Figger-Four,’ and made such talk
to me,” snarled Hiram, “I’d drive you right down through the floor
there, like I’d drive a tent peg. But I’m willin’ to argue with you,
Sime, and if that don’t show that I’m a friend of yours, then I don’t
know what does.” He wiped his flushed face. “You understand, I
can’t bust this thing in a minit.”
“Didn’t you yourself ketch him right in a caper that would queer
him with any decent woman—lug-gin’ off another man’s wife ’cause
he was hired to?”
“Don’t you know that would be givin’ away the trouble of the
young Mayos—and them livin’ together now like turtledoves?” roared
Hiram. “Look at my brother Phin—one of God’s own gentlemen, if
there ever was one. Him a-breakin’ his heart and misjudged and old
Willard’s girl passin’ him by be-. cause he smashed King Bradish
before her face and eyes—and Bradish with the last word to her!
Don’t you suppose my brother could square himself with her by just
one word of what he knows? But will he do it after he has passed
’Rissy Mayo his word that so long as she behaves herself he won’t
give her away to any livin’ soul? You can say he’s a fool if you want
to, but I tell ye, Sime, when a man has got as far along in life as
Phin has without breakin’ his solemn word, you can’t blame him if
he’d rather gnaw himself inside than have those whom he gives
away scorch him outside.”
He had furiously puffed his cigar down to the end. Now he lighted
another.
“I never approved of him carin’ a snap for the Willard girl, Sime. I
don’t like her. I don’t like the breed. But this lovin’ of folks ain’t to be
regulated jest the way you’d like to have it. If my brother can keep
his mouth shut about King Bradish’s rottenness when, as you might
say, it’s a wife at stake for him, then I guess I can keep still when it’s
only a grudge that I’m workin’.”
“Then it ain’t no wife in your case?” pursued Peak, suspiciously.
“I tell ye, all I can do now is to hint,” insisted Hiram, evading the
main question. “I’ve jest got her on the anxious seat. It’s the way I
struck up her interest first of all. I couldn’t have got near her with a
ten-foot pole if I hadn’t got her curiosity started by hints. Then, of
course, she wanted to know what I meant and I’ve been puttin’ her
off ever since. You never saw a woman so worked up as she is, Sime
—never. She can’t hardly stand it till I come again. Then she lets into
me to tell her all about Cap Bodfish. She don’t want to leave go of
him till she knows definite. I reckon she wants to have him around
so as to peel him when she does find out that there really is
something in what I hint.” The showman chuckled again. “And it’s
kind of what you might call a lingerin’ death for him—one of the
slow kind like bein’ gnawed by ants. Ev’ry time he goes up to see
her she don’t know whuther to love him or club him off’n the
premises—and she blows hot and she blows cold all in one minit,
and if he ain’t the wust puzzled man that ever tried to box compass
in the sea of matrimony, then I’ll eat the celluloid peel in a side-show
lemonade.”
 “Don’t he suspect what it all means?” inquired Peak, beginning to
appreciate the situation with the malice of a man who has been
fooled and enjoys seeing others in the same boat.
“Keeps a-grabbin’ ev’ry which way like a man that hears a
moskeeter buzzin’ round him in the night,” giggled Hiram. “I’ve set
right in the other room sev’ral times and he didn’t know I was there,
and I’ve heard him coax and beg and guess and promise and almost
blubber, and me behind the door in t’other room swellin’ up and
swellin’ up and then lettin’ it out through my nose easy, and then
swellin’ up again. I don’t believe I shall be able to stand very much
of that. I’m li’ble to bust some time.”
“I should think it would be well wuth list’nin’ to,” agreed Peak.
Then he said artlessly: “I like fun myself. Why can’t I go along with
you after this? Then there won’t be no such thing as her gettin’ her
cobweb around you.”
“You talk as though I was runnin’ matinées up-country,” said
Hiram, the red on his bristly cheeks. He detected Peak’s selfish
apprehension, and the giant’s gaze shifted under his scowl. “I never
had any trouble in runnin’ my own bus’ness yet and I don’t expect to
have to call in understudies right away.”
In considerable dudgeon he marched along to a narrow secretary
in the corner and began to mumble figures in an undertone as he
went over his accounts. Peak sat gazing into the fire, twirling his
huge thumbs thoughtfully.
The sound of some one stamping off snow on the porch broke
upon the silence of the two. The visitor came in without knocking
and, fumbling his way along the dark entry, opened the sitting-room
door.
It was old Sumner Badger, the wet snow splotching his faded
overcoat.
 “’Pears to be one o’ these ’ere sticky storms,” he observed amiably,
pulling a chair up before the stove.
“Yes, seems to hang to you like dollar bills do,” retorted Hiram,
snapping around from the secretary and squinting over his glasses.
Then he went on with his figuring, talking half aloud. Badger
surveyed the back of his head for some time and then said:
“It’s about that money you want to borrow of me, Capt’in.” Badger
always bestowed this title in moments when he wanted to placate.
“Then you’ve collected from Willard, have you?” inquired Hiram,
gruffly, over his shoulder. “Huh, you’ve been long enough about it.
Ever since last fall.”
“Well, I’ve seen the Jedge,” faltered Badger; “jest come from his
office to here. He says the town can’t raise no money to take up
town notes not till town meetin’ in March. He says it will be made all
right to me if I’ll wait. Now he give me to understand that I’d git
seven per cent, all hunky if I didn’t hurry things and—no, s’r, honest
to Lucifer if I said a word about your wantin’ the money,” he
expostulated as Hiram swung angrily to face him.
“I told you I’d kill you if you did,” roared Hiram. “And I didn’t,
Capt’in! No, s’r, when it’s money concerned I can keep my mouth
shet. Ain’t I kept it shet all these years about the Jedge havin’ it?”
“Let’s see!” remarked Hiram, with a sly look in his eye, as though
he wished to test this Palermo voter. “How much money does
Palermo owe, anyway?”
“I don’t have the least idee,” blandly returned Badger, crossing his
knees. “We all trust the Jedge to ’tend to that. He knows.”
“So you are goin’ to let your money stay with the Judge, hey?”
“Well—blorh hum! Well, as I was sayin’, Jedge Willard seems to be
perfickly square about makin’ it right and—and—well, Capt’in,
nat’rally it’s—it’s bus’ness—well, to make it an object to shift you
might—-there’s the taxes, too——”
“You old harker,” cried Hiram, irefully, “what you want me to say is
that I’ll pay you eight per cent.! ‘You’ve been whifflin’ back and forth
for two months between Judge Willard and me. I thought you got all
ready to die a while ago. What are you waitin’ for—to place your
money out at eight per cent, first?”
“I ain’t goin’ to die,” blurted Badger. “A man’s got the right to
change his mind, ain’t he? And they’ve found out about that Mis’
Achorn. She used a wax hand to make folks believe ’twas some one
dead that was touchin’ ’em and—-”
“Shet up!” barked Hiram. “Do you think I’ve been in the circus line
thirty years to need to have fakes explained to me? It’s bus’ness I
want to talk with you, Sum. Don’t you read your town report, you
fool? Don’t you know that Judge Willard says there over his name
that this town owes only a little over two thousand dollars? And yet
you know, yourself, that he has borrowed seven thousand from you
on a town note! Don’t you stop to think about those things? And
now I’ll tell you something to make your hair curl! I have found out
that there are twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of town notes held
around here by just such old blind moles as you are that he has told
to keep still. Lord knows how many more there are. I don’t imagine
that some would let it out if you took a knife to ’em.”
He wiped the perspiration from his face and gazed at Badger as
though he expected the information to wilt him. The avenger of the
wrongs of the Looks was not entirely ready with the thunderbolt that
he was forging for the town treasurer of Palermo, but the serenity of
the dollar-blinded Badger exasperated him. For a test he wanted to
see how one citizen of Palermo would receive the disclosure.
“I tell you your treasurer is fooling the whole of ye!” he shouted.
“He has stolen from your town.” The creditor blinked at him. “Now
will you sit by and let him fool you with his talk of makin’ it right?
Now will you try to screw eight per cent, out of me who’s tryin’ to
bring him to the ring bolt? Now will you hand that note over to me
or pitch in and collect it yourself?”
To Hiram’s intense astonishment Badger slowly leaned forward,
set his elbows on his knees, began to tap his finger-tips together,
winked one eye, and smiled shrewdly and composedly.
“Don’t you worry none about Coll Willard,” he said. “He’s a
financier.” He rolled the word over his tongue. “His folks was
financiers before him. Nobody can’t fool him. He’s sly. So’m I. He’s
ready to help the sly folks. You’ve got money, but you ain’t no
financier. You’re jest a circus man. And we ain’t your monkeys, here
in P’lermo. If you want your nuts pulled out of the fire, pull ’em out
yourself.”
Hiram got up and stamped around the room in an ecstasy of rage.
“I’m a good mind to let you all go to Tophet by the short cut, your
tails tied together with kerosened rags,” he gasped. “Here I am,
givin’ up time and money to save this town from being lugged into
bankruptcy, and what do I get? I get laughed at! Damn it!” he
stormed, “there’s your last town report! Look for yourself! He’s lied
there under oath.”
With the words he threw a pamphlet into Badger’s lap. The old
man promptly tossed the report upon the table.
“You’d better stop tryin’ to work out your old grudge on Jedge
Willard,” he advised, with a bland sapience that made the showman
grit his teeth. “If he finds out that you’re a-slanderin’ him he’s li’ble
to have the law on ye.”
“If I should stand up in town meetin’ and call on you to rise and
say whether or not you hold a town note for seven thousand dollars,
I suppose you’ll lie, won’t you?”
“I shall allus stand behind the man who has allus helped to put
some extry dollars in my pocket,” said the old man, stiffly.
 Hiram seized him by the arm, hustled him to the door and thrust
him out into the entry.
“If you wasn’t rank poison I’d chop you up and feed you to
Imogene,” he shouted as he slammed the door. “If you come into my
house again I’ll take chances and do it.”
The door opened promptly and the unterrified Badger poked in his
head.
“I don’t s’pose you’re goin’ back on your brother Phin as a legal
adviser, be ye?” he inquired. “Well, he advised me to hang onto my
town note for a while and keep still till I heard from him. It wa’n’t
two hours ago that he told me the same thing. Now I——”
But when Hiram clutched a chair with a threatening motion
Badger fled.
“Sime,” said the showman, “I’m blasted glad I had them carts
painted up. It’s me and you for the road again next season, both of
us with our knives out for blood and our little tin dippers held ready
to catch it. I’m sick of tryin’ to do favours for anyone. I never saw
such an ungrateful town as this one is.”
He looked sullenly out into the driving snow.
“The band seems to be doin’ well,” said Peak. “They’re havin’
three rehearsals a week and are pretty nigh blowin’ their lungs out.
You can’t ask nothin’ better from the band than what you’re gittin’.”
Hiram turned from the window and gave his friend and confidant a
long and searching stare.
“Peak,” said he, “sometimes when you talk to me I think you’re in
with the rest a-tryin’ to do me.”
Simon surveyed him with eyes mutely expostulating.
“Other times I think you are a dummed fool. You can take your
pick. Now I am goin’ out to associate with some one that ain’t tryin’
to pick my pocket the whole dog-blessed time nor spreadin’ on hair-
oil talk when it ain’t called for.”
He trudged out to the barn where Imogene was spending the
winter in dignified ease, occupying a corner of the building that had
been sheathed and boarded for her comfort. Here “Figger-Four”
Avery tended a little air-tight stove, relegated to the post of menial.
Hiram sat in silent communion with Imogene until the dusk came
down. Once in a while he fed to her a lump of candy. Each time she
curved down her trunk he poked a thick finger against it roguishly.
“I’ll bet ye know who sent ’em to ye—now, don’t ye?” he would
chuckle, when Imogene gazed down on him with amiable blinkings.
 CHAPTER XVII—WHAT DEVELOPED
AT THE FORUM IN ASA BRICKETT’S
STORE,
TO AN OBBLIGATO BY LOOK’S CORNET BRASS
BAND
“Always a seat for another,
Providin’ we squeeze ’em tight;
Stampin’ in from the smother,
For ’tis snowin’ hard to-night.
Time for a bit o’ smokin’,
Time for another tale,
Time for a little jokin’,
Waitin’ here for the mail.”
—Ballad of “The Grocery Store.”

I
think there’s more git-up and ginger in a fife and drum,” said
Uncle Lysimachus Buck. He had cocked his ear to listen. Then he
held his cane beside his lips and fingered imaginary stops.
The windows of Hobbs’s hall, across the street from Asa Brickett’s
store, shed their yellow gleams out upon the crisp winter night. A
band rehearsal was going on there. The loafers who hovered about
the stove in the store could hear the voice of the leader haranguing
his men, then the robust attack on the tune—bass horns bellowing
“oomp-pah oomps,” cornets blaring and clarinets wailing; then the
false note, the wavering in the melody and the sharp command of a
voice, at which the music shredded out into jargon and ceased. More
harangue and away they all went again from the start!
“If the dummed calves ever git so they can play a whole piece to
once it will be wuth while list’nin’,” growled Marriner Amazeen,
settling down once more to his whittling, after he had cocked his ear
for a time.
“Near’s I can find out, Hime ain’t lettin’ ’em practise nothin’ but
them high-diddle-diddle circus tunes,” observed Uncle Buck. “Now,
you take a fife and drum in ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ or a good
fiddler in ‘The Devil’s Dream’ or ‘Miss McCloud’s Reel,’ or even an
accordion in ‘Alice, Where Be Ye?’ and, by swanny, you’ve got the
real old ear-ticklers. But this squeaky-weaky, biff, bang, boom stuff
ain’t music no more’n poundin’ on a tin wash-boiler is.”
But when Brickett began knocking a soap box into pieces for
firewood, Uncle Buck bawled at him angrily.
“Band tootlin’ don’t keep me warm,” said Brickett, as he stuffed
the fuel into the stove. “Any time my system of runnin’ things in this
store don’t suit the loafers, said loafers know what they can do.”
“Ain’t no need of goin’ ’round makin’ noise jest for the sake of
makin’ it,” replied Buck.
“Then you whistle whilst I pound boxes,” said the storekeeper,
grinning, “and p’raps it’ll remind you of a fife and drum.”
“Shet up a little while, won’t ye, now?” asked Micajah Dunham,
wistfully. “Here I drive clear in from my place on band-practisin’
nights so’s to git a little music, and you run your clack so that a feller
can’t hear.” He sat on the edge of a box, his purchases heaped in his
lap, his fur cap on the floor in order that the earlappers might not
obstruct his hearing. “Here’s a piece now that they play well,” he
added, with the air of conviction of one who had followed faithfully
the work of the new Palermo band.
The men around the stove listened, Uncle Buck tapping his cane
appreciatively.
“There! Ain’t that good?” sighed Dunham as the band came down
the homestretch and wound up the selection in a fine burst of
melody.
“I guess there ain’t no doubt but what Wat Mayo is hunky-dory as
a musicianer,” agreed Amazeen. “I hear that the Port boys are gittin’
up a band, and they’re even talkin’ of one over to Newry Gore, and
are goin’ to have Wat to teach both of ’em. I s’pose it’s all right for
him to spend his time that way and earn a dollar, but it don’t seem
much like man’s work to me.”
“I s’pose you think the only real bus’ness a man ought to foller is
to raise pertaters and fat shotes?” sarcastically observed Dunham. “I
tell ye, I admire the Mayo boy’s spunk in makin’ something out of
himself instead of a day-labourer. You can’t fit square pegs into
round holes. He’s been woke up and put into the job that he fits.
Now he’ll amount to some thing. Folks gen’rally amount to
something when they git woke up—if it ain’t too late,” he added with
a sigh. He snuggled his heap of parcels together on his knees. “I
ought to be goin’ home,” he said, half to himself. “But, I swan, I’d
like to hear one more tune.”
“You seem to be livin’ pretty well nowadays out to your house,”
remarked Uncle Buck, with a sly look at the bundles.
“’Tain’t no more than bringin’ up the gen’ral av’rage, when you
think of what we’ve missed to our house,” was Dunham’s stout
rejoinder. He was ready nowadays to meet fearlessly the malicious
thrusts of his old neighbours, with his new gospel of life.
 The music recommenced again across the street. This time the
band was playing an accompaniment for a cornet solo by its leader.
The notes, dulcet in the distance, seemed almost phrasing a song.
Dunham’s eyes moistened with the sudden emotion of his simple
nature.
“I know you all have a good deal of fun behind my back about the
way I’ve shifted over,” he said, quietly. “I know that it makes you
laugh to hear me go ’round preachin’ about gittin’ a little something
out of life as you go along. I don’t care if you do laugh. Laugh! The
more ye laugh, the less you’ll growl. But me and my wife has woke
up, and we don’t care who knows it, and if some of the rest of you
would wake up, too, you’d find that the only thing the sun shines for
ain’t to raise crops and make freckles.”
“P’raps if all of us could git holt of a ready-made, grown-up
daughter, as good as the one you’ve got, we might improve some,”
said Buck, with a wink at his associates in “hector.”
“P’raps you could,” Dunham answered, simply and earnestly.
“Well, it makes a pretty good berth for a poor girl, ’Caje,” said a
man behind the stove. “Most anyone would like to be adopted into a
fam’ly like yours.”
“It ain’t that way, neighbours,” Dunham said softly, his face in the
direction of the music. “When we adopted ’Liza Haskell we was
gettin’ the best end of the bargain, if ye want to put it on that kind
of a basis. We was both all corners before—sharp corners at that. I
ain’t backward about ownin’ up—we f’it, me and Esther, like fury,
and we didn’t know what was the matter with us. But somehow
there don’t seem to be any corners in our house now. Them that
ain’t filled with new chairs and pictur’s is all full o’ sunshine. There
ain’t a room in the house that looks like it used to—with the
furniture standin’ round jest as though it had been used at a funeral
last and was where the undertaker arranged it. We didn’t know what
the matter was, I say—me and Esther didn’t. We don’t know jest
how it’s come about nov. But we do know that we’ve adopted
something besides a poor little girl—we’ve adopted sunshine and
sweetness and comfort and new notions about livin’ and lovin’ and
havin’.”
He stood up and piled his parcels upon his arm.
“That’s the way it is to our house nowadays, neighbours. I used to
like to set here the whole ev’nin’ in the store before—but now—well,
when I git to thinkin’ about how home is, why, it takes more than
them pretty tunes to hold me here. There’s music to our house that’s
better than all the brass bands in the world.”
He went out and they heard the jingle of his sleigh-bells threading
through the mellow notes of the cornet.
“He was allus sort of a soft old fool when you got under his shell,”
scoffed Uncle Buck, grinding his cane against the rusty stove. “What
I can’t understand is how Esther ever come ’round as she did. I allus
thought she was harder’n nails.”
“Oh, it took Squire Phin to warm her ear-wax,” said Amazeen.
“And when you know how to handle a woman like that, why, you’ve
got her—that’s all. I cal’late there ain’t a man in the county that
understands human natur’ better’n Squire Phin does. He can handle
’em all right when he makes up his mind to.”
Uncle Buck was plainly nettled by Amazeen’s air of easy
confidence.
“Well, there’s one woman that he don’t seem to be able to handle
—and I reckon he’d like to at that,” he snorted. “Sylvene Willard ain’t
hardly spoke to him since he knocked her feller down.”
“I don’t cal’late as how you’ve got any right to call King Bradish
her feller,” objected Amazeen.
“I donno why not,” snapped Uncle Buck. “Jedge Willard come right
out after that happened and said that Sylvene and King was goin’ to
git married at Christmas time, and Sylvene didn’t dispute him. It’s
past Christmas time now, to be sure, but as I understand it, King is
tied up in New York by bus’ness and ain’t been able to git back since
he went away a little spell ago.”
“Little spell ago!” cried Amazeen. “He ain’t been back since he
went away that time in the fall when Hime’s el’phunt got loose.”
“Mebbe, but time slides away kind o’ fast,” grudgingly admitted
Buck. “Howsomever, they’ll git married all right when he comes
back. If Coll Willard says so, then they will, that’s all! Phin Look can’t
stop it. His cake was dough when he licked Bradish.”
“As I’ve allus understood the row, King had the right of it,”
observed the man behind the stove.
“Why, the Jedge himself told me,” said Buck, “that all King done in
the world was to step up to the Squire and call him into line for
braggin’ round how he’d cut out King the night before and walked
home with Sylvene from the schoolhouse out Dunham’s way. Jedge
told me so himself. That’s comin’ pretty straight!”
“Well, now, that don’t seem like Squire Phin Look,” broke in
Amazeen, wagging his head decisively. “I’ve heard that version, but
it don’t seem like Squire Phin—and we’ve known him a long time,
too.”
“He ain’t ever given the lie to the Jedge,” said Buck. “He ain’t ever
said aye, yes or no about it. Nat’rally think, then, he must be
ashamed of it, wouldn’t ye? I tell ye, boys, when there’s a woman in
the case we don’t none of us know what the best of us might do.
Squire Phin Look is an almighty nice man, good and kind-hearted
and smarter’n a whip. I’ve allus stood up for him, and I was in the
scheme——” He checked himself suddenly in some confusion with a
side glance at Amazeen. “I was in hopes that the match wouldn’t
come off with Bradish. But the Squire went and lost his head and
kicked up—-like the best do sometimes when there’s a woman in the
case. Sylvene Willard ain’t the woman to stand that kind of bus’ness.
You can’t blame her. I say she and Bradish will git married, and you
can mark my word on it.”
A man sat on a bit of board that was laid across an unheaded keg
of nails. He had been listening, elbows on his knees, his brown
hands braiding and unbraiding a length of rope with a sailor’s
deftness. This man was Mate Seekins of the A. P. Bristol, home in
Palermo for his midwinter lay-off.
“What do they hear here in town from Bradish?” he inquired.
There was a suppressed note of meaning in his voice that the little
crowd did not catch.
The men about the stove looked at each other. “Nothin’,” at last
blurted Uncle Buck.
“What bus’ness is he a-follerin’ of in New York?” asked Seekins.
“As near’s I’ve ever come to it,” said Buck, “him and the Jedge is
in some kind of financierin’ together and King’s handlin’ that end of
it. But the Jedge don’t put his bus’ness into the Seaside Oracle and
King ain’t the kind that writes letters to be read out loud here in
Ase’s store,” he added grimly. “I s’pose his mother hears reg’lar and
the Jedge and Sylvene, but the Bradishes and the Willards never
messed in very thick with their neighbours. Sum and substance is,
we don’t know not the first dum thing about King Bradish nor his
bus’ness, nor why he closed up bus’ness here in the hurry that he
did and got out of the place. And I donno as I care. I never had no
use for the skunk, anyway.”
He pared a corner from a black plug of tobacco, stuck it into his
cheek and relapsed into dignified silence.
The man on the keg braided at his rope-end.
“I shouldn’t want him to do no gre’t amount of financierin’ for
me,” he said at last. “Bradish, I mean.”
 “I donno ’bout that,” Amazeen said. “He was allus pretty sharp on
a dicker ’round here.”
“I say I shouldn’t want him to do my financierin’ for me,” persisted
Mate Seekins.
The group waited for him to go on, but he kept at his braiding.
“Well, you’ve gone that fur. Keep on,” commanded Uncle Buck.
“I ain’t no hand to peddle gossip,” said Seekins.
“Who said ye was?” Lysimachus’s tone was indignant. “And there
ain’t no. call for you to hint that we’re gossips here. If you ain’t man
enough to dast to say what you know, then keep still and much
good may it do you.” But the old man’s eyes gleamed with curiosity.
“Half truths are wusser’n whole lies,” he muttered. “I ain’t no hand
to talk and tell,” went on Seekins, “but when I say I don’t want him
to financier for me I mean to say that I don’t want any man handlin’
my money that keeps drunk as a fiddler’s hoorah.”
The music from across the street bellowed in louder blast, for the
store door opened with a bang and Hiram Look came stamping in.
“Do me up a slab of cheese and plenty of crackers, Colonel
Brickett,” he called. “Wider’n that,” he snapped as Brickett set his
knife on the cheese. “Look’s Cornet Brass Band ain’t eatin’ no half
rations so long as old Hime himself is on hand to buy for ’em.”
He beamed on the circle of faces about the stove, for the
inspiration of his favourite tunes made him genial.
“How does that sound to you, old turkles?” he cried, with a
backward jab of his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of
Hobbs’s hall. “It’s sort of wakin’ up Palermo, hey?”
“I suppose it will be good enough when they can play without
soundin’ like bullfrogs with the croup,” returned Uncle Buck, sulkily.
Hiram had come in at just the time when he had edged forward to
put some leading questions to Mate Seekins. He turned to the sailor
again.
“You was sayin’——” he began.
“You never heard nothin’ in your life before but a melodeon and a
jew’s harp, you old Fiji,” shouted Hiram, thrusting forward close to
the stove. “There’s about a half dozen of you old mossbacks that
ain’t come to enough to appreciate what I’m doin’ for this place. But
I’ve got the crowd with me. I’ll show ye in town meeting next March!
I can run that band myself, so fur’s that comes to; but I’m goin’ to
make some of you old hogs of taxpayers chip in to support it. I’m
goin’ to have an article put in appropriating two hundred dollars for
band concerts next summer, and I’ll carry it through.”
“This town won’t vote for no such dum foolishness,” retorted Buck.
He turned to Seekins again, his curiosity mastering his spirit of
controversy.
“You was sayin’ as how——”
“Bet you fifty, and put the money in Brickett’s hands right now,”
bellowed Hiram, ever eager for opportunities to browbeat the old
men of the village. He dug into his trousers pocket.
“Why don’t you wear that wad o’ money hung round your neck
out in plain sight?” demanded Uncle Lysimachus, angrily. “You seem
bound and determined to have it under our noses all the whol’ time.”
“Put up your stuff,” cried Hiram. “Make a pool if ye want to. I ain’t
afraid of the gang of you.”
He whirled and ran his hale eye along their faces. Dow Babb, who
had been chief of the Palermo hand-tub brigade for many years,
unhooked his toe from his instep, recrossed his legs and said with
decision:
“You can’t run the whole of this town, Hime, even if you are
runnin’ a part of it jest now. You wait your turn with your brass
band. I’ve been before town meetin’ for four years, now, a-askin’
and implorin’ the voters to appropriate enough to repair Hecla and
buy some more hose. They ain’t give me a cent. Now if you go to
work and bull through any such article in the warrant as you’re
braggin’ you will, then all I’ve got to say is that the next time a fire
breaks out in the village, your darned old band can go and play on
it. The Hecla comp’ny never will.” Uncle Buck, unable to control
himself any longer, got up and pounded his cane on the floor.
“I’ve heard all the tow-rowin’ I want to hear. Here I be tryin’ to
talk with Mr. Seekins about something that amounts to something.
And ye can’t hear yourself think. Take your cheese and your
crackers, Hime Look, and go over and stuff ’em into your toodle-
oodlers. Let gentlemun that’s a-talkin’ serious bus’ness go on with
their serious bus’ness. Now, Seekins, you said as how you’d seen
King Bradish drunker’n a fiddler’s hoorah. What else?”
“I never said I seen him,” returned the man, sullenly.
“It’s the same thing; you meant it. Go ahead.” The old man’s tone
was imperious.
Hiram and the rest of the crowd turned to him, inquiry on their
faces. The showman leaned forward with especial insistence.
“I ain’t no hand to tattle——”
“You said that before, consarn ye!” This persistent delay that
baffled Uncle Buck’s curiosity made him furious.
“No matter what you see or what you didn’t see,” said Hiram. “The
idea is, what do you know?” There was no resisting the force of
circumstances. “Well,” roared Seekins, “I know that King Bradish is
keepin’ full of licker in New York and throwin’ money right and left
and over his shoulder—or has been so long’s he had it to throw. He’s
gone to Tophet, that’s what he’s done, and if what I hear up at the
other end is true, he’s got a string hitched to certain parties in this
place and he’s goin’ to drag ’em with him. Now that’s all you’re goin’
to git out of me,” he concluded, throwing the rope-end into the
wood-box and rising. “I don’t propose to git into no trouble by talkin’
and tellin’. I’ve seen people that done that. If any’s interested, let
’em go to New York and to the right people and they’ll find out for
themselves.”
He pushed through the little circle and went out of the store.
Hiram seized his crackers and cheese and started after him,
overtaking the sailor in the middle of the square.
One after the other, the old men blunted their noses against the
frosty panes of Brickett’s front window, trying to spy and to hear. But
only the mumble of voices reached them, Hiram’s tone insistent,
Seekins’s deprecatory.
But at last Hiram slapped him cordially on the back and the two
separated. A sudden cessation in the band music showed that the
refreshments had arrived in the hall, and the old men yawned about
Brickett’s stove and one by one went home.
One or two persons saw Hiram Look drive out of the yard of the
old place the next forenoon and take the road toward Square
Harbour, his tall hat projecting just above the high back of his sleigh,
and fat ear-muffs cosily snuggling his ears.
These one or two asked “Figger-Four” Avery about the showman’s
departure, when he came to the store during the day, after a “fig" of
tobacco.
“Here’s what he said to me,” stated Avery: “Says he, ‘I’m goin’ to
Europe, I-rope and A-rope after wild animiles, and I’ll be back when
I git damation good and ready. If you miss feedin’ Imogene on the
dot or let the fire git low in the stove, I’ll warp t’other leg for you.’
There! That’s what he said, and if you can git any more out of it
than what I have, you’re welcome to. I guess you’d better give me
another fig o’ terbacker, Ase, for I’m goin’ to stay pretty clus to that
barn till he gits back.”
 “I s’pose you know all about el’phunts now, don’t you, Avery?”
inquired one of the men who lounged about the stove, toasting their
shins.
“Wal, I know this much,” said “Figger-Four,” putting away his weed
and buttoning his coat before facing the cold; “I know that an
el’phunt wants meals reg’lar—a lot of it, can’t understand a joke and
don’t like music on the flute. There may be other things about ’em to
know, but they ain’t things that I need in my bus’ness.”
 CHAPTER XVIII—YANKEE
DISPOSITION IS NOT EXACTLY
UNDERSTOOD,
EVEN BY ITS POSSESSORS.
“Old Zibe Haines had a corn on his toe
And it ached like ginger ev’ry step he’d go.
He reckoned that toe had all them pains
Jest for to hector old Zibe Haines.
He grabbed up a mallet and a chisel, too,
And clear’n to the woodpile swore things blue.
He put that toe on the choppin’ block
And off he whacked it, slap, ker-chock!
And he throwed that toe ’bout ha’f a mile—
Oh, that was old Zibe Haines’s style.
Tum-diddy-dum and tum-diddy-dee,
Queer old crab was Haines, was he!”
—Narrated by Marriner Amazeen.

quire Phineas Look, during the life of his love for Sylvena Willard,
had become pretty thoroughly accustomed to having his heart affairs
S
marked “Continued till next session,” as he half-bitterly termed
it in his meditations.
Coupled with Squire Phin’s natural reserve was that quality
of his trained lawyer mind that was willing to abide delays till “his
case was prepared.”
In some men this would have been timidity.
In others it would have been half-heartedness.
In Squire Phin it was fixity of purpose and the steady loyalty of a
firm, pure, true love that could wait.
Down in Smyrna the summer visitors still listen with mingled
emotions to the story of the loves of Moses Britt and Xoa Emerson.
After they became engaged Moses worked for eight years
accumulating enough money to buy three-eights of a fishing
schooner. Xoa toiled at housework in various families, picked
blueberries for the canning factory, and, by any employment that
came to her hand, earned and saved for the little home that they
had planned.
“We won’t get married till we can have our house built and
furnished and ready to step into,” was the mark they had set thriftily
for themselves.
The house went up, so old Mell Cowallis remarked, like the way
“Figger-Four” Avery walked—steady by jerks: one year the
foundation, another year the side walls and roof, a third year the
chimneys and the lathing and clapboards—and so on for successive
seasons, according as the fishing prospered and the work-stained
fingers of Xoa tucked away the clinking change and the worn dollar
bills.
Now it came to the time when Xoa resolved to fulfill the dream of
her life and have a bow window of ample dimensions, the model of
the one on Sheriff Morton’s big house, where she had worked for
years in the kitchen, envying all the time the luxurious ease of the
sheriff’s wife lolling on a divan in the window. But this window
meant postponing the marriage a year, and with the house so nearly
completed Moses had begun to express an entirely natural anxiety to
get married.
Xoa, with the bow window filling her vision, could not understand
this sudden haste in one who had been always as philosophic over
delays as she herself.
“You think more of your old bow winder than you do of me,” cried
Moses, in sudden jealousy. And he sailed away on a trip to the
Banks, biting his stubbly gray beard in pique.
And ere one week had gone a legacy came to Xoa from her aunt
Persis—just enough of a legacy to put on that bow window. So she
hired carpenters in haste and set them at work, determined to have
her way before the return of Moses. On one evening when the
expanse of glass in that window was glowing redly in the beams of
the setting sun, the “Xoa and Laura” sailed up the reach with her
flag at half mast, and reported the loss of Moses Britt and his dory
mate, smashed under in a fog by a roaring steamship.
Those who know say that Xoa knelt all night in her new bow
window, with her face against the glass, and when morning came
she called the carpenters again, and with clamour of hammers and
rasp of saws they took off the bow window and boarded the side of
the building up. And then—it being a case where the solemn
ceremony could be deferred till all was ready—she secured a casket
from the city, put into it all the pathetic old clothes that had been
turned over to her with Moses’s dunnage-bag, called in the parson
and the neighbours, and the funeral of Moses Britt was decorously
carried out in a house upon which the soul of the bridegroom-elect
could look down from on high and not take exceptions.
For forty years after that, until death took her, Xoa lived an old
maid in the bow-windowless house.
 It is not likely that Squire Phin Look used this case or any others
similar for precedents in heart affairs, as he would have employed
law-court decisions in his legal practice, but he had in his New
England temperament a finer grade of the same iron-stone that is
found in such dispositions as those of Moses and Xoa.
So much for the steadiness and the reserve of his affection in the
past.
Since that unfortunate day in the fall there had been something
else than reserve to make him walk hastily past the Willard place, to
keep him away from the little social gatherings in the meeting-house
vestry, and he avoided Sylvena Willard with as much anxiety as she
appeared to avoid him. He was as ashamed of that blow as he would
have been of a crime. Now that the rage of the provocation had
departed, he knew that his act had been a vulgar street affray—
there was no other word for it in his vocabulary.
When some of the jesters in the attorneys’ room at county court
mentioned the affair at the December term with many humorous
inquiries, he was so overwhelmed with shame that he asked
continuance for most of his cases and hurried home.
Yet he heard other things at that term of court that disquieted him
more.
“Why, Look, I know it!” one of his lawyer friends had insisted,
when he ventured to remonstrate at certain gossip. “I don’t know
how much property Judge Willard has got, nor what resources are
back of him. But I do know that he is as pinched for ready money as
the devil. I can talk with you without it’s going any farther; but being
a trustee in a savings bank and a director in a national bank, I come
pretty near knowing when a man is hustling hard for loans, and you
can tell how hard he is hustling from the kind of collateral he is
offering. I’ve got nothing against the Judge, but I’m afraid he’s in
over his head with Bradish. Your Bradish has been a country plunger
for a long time—and the country plunger is the worst of the breed.
He thinks he knows it all and is working the stock market at arm’s
length. I know, myself, that one bucket shop let him down for
sixteen thousand in a single blind pool. Willard seems to have played
fox with you folks in Palermo through it all, and, of course, he’s had
a great start of you with his reputation and all that. But if he’s your
town treasurer, as I hear he is, and custodian of about all the funds
of widows and orphans and old codgers in your town, give him a
looking over and do it right away. You can’t afford to let even a
Willard dump the whole of you—especially when it looks to me as
though this Bradish is the chap responsible for getting him into this
mess and has gobbled most of the money.”
But even with that warning to spur him, Squire Look allowed the
weeks to pass without setting about any thorough investigation of
Judge Willard’s finances. If he were any other than Seth Look’s boy
—-Hiram Look’s brother, he felt that the case would be different.
Whenever he paused in his work to ponder on the matter and on his
duty to the citizens, he groaned under his breath and put the thing
away from him once more.
And as the winter went on the Squire found less and less time to
think upon anything but his own matters.
The State legislature had recognised his modest but just
reputation as one of the best-grounded “straight” lawyers in the
State, and on the recommendation of the judges had selected him
as the reviser of the statutes, a labour that he found exacting and
absorbing.
Then on the heels of this work came a syndicate with a scheme
for helping municipalities to instal and own their own water plants,
despite the statutory restrictions that allow towns to assume so
much debt and no more. The syndicate had heard of the Squire’s
legal invention of “water districts” that he had studied out in the
dumbly approving presence of his “Creosote Supreme Court” and
expounded to the amazement of lawyers who studied for a while
and then accepted.
 And the syndicate would not listen to a nay and laid a certified
check in his hands of a size that would have caused Asa Brickett to
swoon had he realised that so large a consideration had passed over
his head, and on the first warming days of March thousands of picks
and shovels were ready to follow Squire Phineas Look when he had
brushed away the last tangle of litigation.
Uncle Buck had passed the necessary word among the veteran
loafers who used to occupy the lawyer’s shaky chairs.
“He’s busier’n a yaller dog with a tin can of snap-crackers tied to
his tail, and he don’t want nobody up there unless they come on
straight bus’ness.”
So all day long, whether the snow beat against the panes or the
sun shone warm upon his broad back down through the bare elms,
the Squire sat at his big table, his pen busy, scratchity-scratch, or his
eyebrows frowning above some volume of reports, his old dog Eli
curled on the dusty floor at his feet.
And the only ones who stamped up the slippery outside stairs
were those who came on business.
It was on business that Judge Collamore Willard came one snowy,
blowy day in March, the wind whipping his cloak about his skinny
legs as he toiled up the stairs leading to Squire Phin’s office. He
came in with the gust casting a last handful of snow at his back, as a
roguish youth snowballs a figure that is aged and eccentric.
It was a queer figure that sat slowly down in one of the Squire’s
chairs, unwrapping fold on fold of a huge shawl that was coiled
about his head and long, thin neck. He had pulled the mitten from
one of his hands and the gaunt phalanges looked like a bundle of
reeds tied together by skin-strips. The skin was speckled with the
brown spots of age and the hand fluttered as it tugged at the shawl.
The Squire put his knees against the edge of the table, sat back in
his chair, and poised his pen in silent amazement for a moment.
Then he pointed the pen at the stove.
“Better sit close, Judge,” he admonished. “The draughts get to
sky-larking through here pretty lively on windy days.”
“I ought not to have come out this day,” said the old man
querulously. “But I didn’t want to send word to you to come to my
office for fear you would think it strange and not come. And I felt
that I had much need to see you, Lawyer Look.”
“I would have come if you had sent word,” said the Squire, simply.
He did not utter his curt “What can I do for you?” so common with
him in these busy times, but looked at his visitor with inquiring gaze.
“Haven’t you got any influence or control over that fool brother of
yours?” demanded the Judge, bluntly and indignantly.
“I don’t care to reply to questions of that sort put in that fashion,”
returned the lawyer, knitting his brows.
Willard stared a moment into his face with its hard lines and then
shifted his eyes under the steady gaze of the Squire.
“I don’t mean to be tart with you, Mr. Look,” he said, moderating
his tone, “but I don’t think you ought to let your brother come into
this town, after all that’s happened, and do what he is trying to do
to me and mine. You’re a man of standing and I’m going to say to
you that I think you are above such things.”
His apology was awkward and half-hearted.
“Aren’t you going to handle him and prevent him from making a
fool of himself?”
“I don’t care to enter into any statement to you, Judge Willard, of
certain family discussions that have already occurred between my
brother and myself. I simply want to state for your benefit that I
have no sympathy with certain movements of his. But my brother’s
business is his own, Judge. He has adopted his own manner of living
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