face was froze and that he had hooked onto the wheel like he was choking it to death.  But the shining structure had glided off toward the depot, its driver’s head rigid, his glance strained upon the road’s centre.  As it moved away Wilbur Cowan leaped to the rear steps and was carried with it.  He had almost asked Starling Tucker for the privilege of a seat beside him, but the occasion was really too great.

Five blocks down Geneseo Street Starling had turned out to permit the passing of Trimble Cushman’s loaded dray—­and he had inexplicably, terribly, kept on turning out when there was no longer need for it.  Frozen with horror, helpless in the fell clutch of circumstance, he sat inert and beheld himself guide the new bus over the sidewalk and through the neat white picket fence of the Dodwell place.  It demolished one entire panel of this, made deep progress over a stretch of soft lawn, and came at last—­after threatening a lawless invasion of the sanctity of domicile—­to a grinding stop in a circular bed of pansies that would never be the same again.  There was commotion within the bus.  Wild-eyed faces peered from the polished windows.  A second later, in the speech of a bystander, “she was sweating passengers at every pore!”

Then came a full-throated scream of terror from the menaced house, and there in the doorway, clad in a bed gown, but erect and defiant, was the person of long-bedridden Grandma Dodwell herself.  She brandished her lace cap at Starling Tucker and threatened to have him in jail if there was any law left in the land.  Excited citizens gathered to the scene, for the picket fence had not succumbed without protest, and the crash had carried well.  Even more than at the plight of Starling, they marvelled at the miracle that had been wrought upon the aged sufferer—­her that hadn’t put foot to floor in twenty years.  There were outcries of alarm and amazement, hasty suggestions, orders to Starling Tucker to do many things he was beyond doing; but above them all rose clear-toned, vigorous denunciation from the outraged owner of the late pansy bed, who now issued from the doorway, walked unsupported down the neat steps, and started with firm strides for the offender.  Starling Tucker beheld her approach, and to him, as to others there assembled, it was as if the dead walked.  He climbed swiftly down upon the opposite side of his juggernaut, pushed a silent way through the crowd, and strode rapidly back to town.  Starling’s walk had commonly been a loose-jointed swagger, his head up in challenge, as befitted a hero of manifold adventure with wild horses.  He now walked head down with no swagger.