Explore "Their Appointed Rounds" by Adeline Adams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Below, just beyond a fork in the dusty stage-road, Remy Mariette, commissioner of highways, was finishing his day's work of filling with gravel the deeper ruts and holes. He was a lithe, brown, ruddy-cheeked young man, known far and wide as a great worker, whether alone or in company. To-day he was alone. It happened that he was not only road commissioner, road laborer, mason, and the best bass of the choir; he was also the village constable. In the inner pocket of his frayed working coat was the secret warrant for the taking of Gerald Bertello. That document had been very much on his mind for the past few days, because, as he himself expressed it, "constabling was a new job for him. " However, he was not thinking, just then, of the cares of his office. He was thinking that before going home, he had plenty of time to skip up the hill and see whether the old gravestones were as badly off as reported at the last town meeting. If so, it meant another job for him; a good one, too, at mason's wages. He swung briskly up the slope, his crowbar as staff. He might need it to pry at the fallen stone.
Well, well, a man asleep. Queer place to choose. Drunk, perhaps? Hey, there, you man asleep!