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Read Ebook: Country Luck by Habberton John
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Ebook has 1187 lines and 67393 words, and 24 pages
A long soft sigh was the farmer's only reply for a moment. It was followed by the remark,--
"That city gal, I s'pose,--confound her!"
"I don't see what you want her confounded for: she hasn't done anythin'. They don't correspond."
"I should hope not," said Hayn, with considerable vigor: he now was wide awake, "What could they write about? You don't s'pose Phil could write anythin' about our goin's-on that would interest her, do you?"
"I didn't say there was; but boys will be boys."
"'Tisn't bein' a fool to be interested in a rich man's daughter. I've often thought how different your life might have been if I'd had anything besides myself to give you when you married me."
"I got all I expected, and a thousand times more than I deserved." This assertion was followed by a kiss, which, though delivered in the dark, was of absolutely accurate aim.
"Don't put it into Phil's head that he can get more than a wife when he marries; 'twill do him a great deal more harm than good."
"I'd like to see the dear boy so fixed that he won't have to work so hard as you've had to do."
"Then you'll see him less of a man than his father, when he ought to be better. Isn't that rather poor business for a mother in Israel to be in, old lady?"
"Well, anyhow, I believe Phil's heart is set on makin' a trip down to York."
"Oh, is that all? Well, he's been promised it, for some day, this long while. Something's always prevented it, but I s'pose now would be as good a time as any. He deserves it; he's as good a son as man ever had."
Mrs. Hayn probably agreed with her husband as to the goodness of their son, but that was not the view of him in which she was interested just then. Said she,--
Again the farmer sighed; then he said, quite earnestly,--
"Let him see her, then; the sooner he does it the sooner he'll stop thinkin' about her. Bless your dear foolish old heart, her ways and his are as far apart as Haynton and heaven when there's a spiritual drought in this portion of the Lord's vineyard."
"I can't for the life of me see why," said the mother. "He's just as good as she, and a good deal smarter, or I'm no judge."
"Not now, but he might go in business there, and make enough to live in style. Other young fellows have done it!"
"Yes,--in stories," said the old man. "Lou Ann, don't you kind o' think that for a church-member of thirty years' standin' you're gettin' mighty worldly-minded?"
"No, I don't," Mrs. Hayn answered. "If not to want my boy to drudge away his life like his father's done is bein' worldly, then I'm goin' to be a backslider, an' stay one. I don't think 'twould be a bit bad to have a married son down to York, so's his old mother could have some place to go once in a while when she's tired to death of work an' worry."
"Oho!" said the old man: "that's the point of it, eh? Well, I don't mind backslidin' enough myself to say the boy may marry one of Satan's daughters, if it'll make life any easier for you, old lady."
"Much obliged," the mother replied, "but I don't know as I care to do visitin' down there."
The conversation soon subsided, husband and wife dropping into revery from which they dropped into slumber. In one way or other, however, the subject came up again. Said Mrs. Hayn one day, just as her husband was leaving the dinner-table for the field in which he was cutting and stacking corn,--
"I do believe Phil's best coat is finer stuff than anything Mr. Tramlay wore when they were up here. I don't believe what he wore Sundays could hold a candle to Phil's."
"Like enough," said the farmer; "and yet the old man always looked better dressed. I think his clothes made him look a little younger than Phil, too."
"Now, husband, you know it isn't fair to make fun of the dear boy's clothes in that way. You know well enough that the stuff for his coat was cut from the same bolt of broadcloth as the minister's best."
"Yes," drawled the farmer through half a dozen inflections, any one of which would have driven frantic any woman but his own wife.
"It's real mean in you to say 'Yes' in that way, Reuben!"
"'Tisn't the wearer that makes the man, old lady; it's the tailor."
"I'm sure Sarah Tweege cut an' made Phil's coat, an' if there's a better sewin'-woman in this part of the county I'd like to know where you find her."
"Oh, Sarah Tweege can sew, Lou Ann," the old man admitted. "Goodness! I wish she'd made my new harness, instead of whatever fellow did it. Mebbe, too, if she'd made the sacks for the last oats I bought I wouldn't have lost about half a bushel on the way home. Yesm', Sarah Tweege can sew a bedquilt up as square as an honest man's conscience. But sewin' ain't tailorin'."
"Don't she always make the minister's clothes?" demanded Mrs. Hayn.
"I never thought of it before, but of course she does. I don't believe anybody else could do it in that way. Yet the minister ain't got so bad a figure, when you see him workin' in his garden, in his shirt-sleeves."
"It's time for you to go back to the cornfield," suggested Mrs. Hayn.
"Yes, I reckon 'tis," said the farmer, caressing what might have been nap had not his old hat been of felt. "'Tain't safe for an old farmer to be givin' his time an' thought to pomps an' vanities,--like the minister's broadcloth coat."
"Get out!" exclaimed Mrs. Hayn, with a threatening gesture. The old man kissed her, laughed, and began to obey her command; but as, like countrymen in general, he made his exit by the longest possible route, wandering through the sitting-room, the hall, the dining-room, and the kitchen, his wife had time to waylay him at the door-step and remark,--
"I was only goin' to say that if Phil does make that trip to York I don't see that he'll need to buy new clothes. He's never wore that Sunday coat on other days, except to two or three funerals an' parties. I was goin' it over this very mornin', an' it's about as good as new."
Phil was already in the corn,--he had left the table some minutes before his father,--and as the old man approached, Phil said,--
"Father, don't you think that wind-break for the sheep needs patching this fall?"
"It generally does, my son, before cold weather sets in."
"I guess I'll get at it, then, as soon as we get the corn stacked."
"What's the hurry? The middle of November is early enough for that."
"Oh, when it's done it'll be off our minds."
"See here, old boy," said the father, dropping the old ship's cutlass with which he had begun to cut the corn-stalks, "you're doin' all your work a month ahead this fall. What are you goin' to do with all your time when there's no more work to be done?"
"I can't say, I'm sure," said Phil, piling an armful of stalks against a stack with more than ordinary care.
"Can't, eh? Then I'll have to, I s'pose, seein' I'm your father. I guess I'll have to send you down to New York for a month, to look aroun' an' see somethin' of the world."
Phil turned so quickly that he ruined all his elaborate work of the moment before, almost burying his father under the toppling stack.
"That went to the spot, didn't it?" said the old man. "I mean the proposition,--not the fodder," he continued, as he extricated himself from the mass of corn-stalks.
"But you didn't like to say so, eh? Well, 'twasn't necessary to mention it; as I told you t'other day, I can see through the back of your head any time, old boy."
"'Twouldn't cost much money," said Phil. "I could go down on Sol Mantring's sloop for nothing, some time when he's short-handed."
"Guess I can afford to pay my oldest son's travellin' expenses when I send him out to see the world. You'll go down to York by railroad, an' in the best car, too, if there's any difference."
"I won't have to buy clothes, anyhow," said the younger man.
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