II
During a not inconsiderable period Mr. Fluker indulged the honorable
conviction that at last he had found the vein in which his best
talents lay, and he was happy in foresight of the prosperity and
felicity which that discovery promised to himself and his family. His
native activity found many more objects for its exertion than before.
He rode out to the farm, not often, but sometimes, as a matter of
duty, and was forced to acknowledge that Sam was managing better than
could have been expected in the absence of his own continuous
guidance. In town he walked about the hotel, entertained the guests,
carved at the meals, hovered about the stores, the doctors' offices,
the wagon and blacksmith shops, discussed mercantile, medical,
mechanical questions with specialists in all these departments,
throwing into them all more and more of politics as the intimacy
between him and his patron and chief boarder increased.
Now as to that patron and chief boarder. The need of extending his
acquaintance seemed to press upon Mr. Pike with ever-increasing
weight. He was here and there, all over the county; at the
county-seat, at the county villages, at justices' courts, at
executors' and administrators' sales, at quarterly and protracted
religious meetings, at barbecues of every dimension, on hunting
excursions and fishing frolics, at social parties in all
neighborhoods.
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