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For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield’s house was really closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed, interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after Hattie’s one unguarded admission that she didn’t know what possessed father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much about what was past and gone, he needn’t have waited till the trump o’ doom to say so. But,’ somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of Nicholas Oldfield’s wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable atmosphere of loftier meanings.

Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that he “wanted to make the critter,” and he thought he could do it. Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike’s barn, selected as of goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was “jest lazin’ round?” Nay, it was to be “all wrought out of the carver’s brain,” and the brain was ready.

Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad’s wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant’s hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise. Between the creature’s fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying meantime to the smallest Crane boy,–