In the small Cape Cod town of Orham during the twilight of the First World War, Mr. Gabriel Bearse walks to the post office unusually happy, and not talking. This is remarkable, because Gabe Bearse has never met a piece of gossip he didn't want to spread, a secret he didn't want to share, or a neighbor whose business he didn't want to know. He's the town's cheerful busybody, a man whose watery eyes glitter with the pleasure of other people's news. When Captain Sam Hunniwell gets appointed to the Exemption Board, the local body deciding who farms and who fights, Gabe has found his latest obsession. He stops at Jed Winslow's windmill shop to dig for details, trading witty barbs with the eccentric maker while both men navigate the tensions rippling through their community: who's enlisting, who's exempted, and what everyone thinks about it all. Joseph Crosby Lincoln captures early 20th century small-town America with sharp observational humor and genuine warmth. The characters are vivid, the dialogue crackles, and the picture of a community adjusting to war's shadow feels both specific and universal. For readers who enjoy gentle satire, period charm, and stories where the real drama lives in what people say to each other over fence posts and shop counters.
