Homespun Tales

floor under the bed, slapped a mosquito on the window-sill, removed all signs of murder with a moist towel, and before running down to breakfast cast a frowning l

xtricating one from her clothing, there had been an alarm of fire, Rose would have

ere were the usual last things to be done for breakfast, offices that belonged to her as her grandmother's assistant. She took yesterday's soda biscuits out of the steamer where they were warming and softeni

all out," she said, as she began buttonin

thing he'll be up along in the course of a week. He ain't a real smart butcher, Cyse Higgins ain't.-Land, Rose, don't button that dickey clean through my epperdummis! I have

h the snap of a dish towel, "or if

le spread near the open kitchen door. She was a dazzling Rose, and, it is to be feared, a wasted one, for there was no one present to observe her clean pink calico and the still more subtle note st

Mr. Wiley; "I must be down to the bridge

the bridge on churnin' days,"

to work on that bung that's formed between the gre't gray rock an' the shore,-the awfullest place to bung that there is between this an' Biddeford,-and says he: 'Look here, I've be'n boss on this river for twelve year, an' I'll be doggoned if I'm goin' to be taught my business by any man!' 'This ain't no river,' says I, 'as you'd know,' says I, 'if you'd ever lived on the Kennebec.' 'Pit

din' their own business," observed the still sententious

Old Kennebec," because of the frequency with which these words appeared in his conversation. There were not wanting those of late who dubbed him Uncle Ananias, for reasons too obvious to mention. After a long, indolent, tolerably truthful, and useless life, he had, at seventy-five, lost sight of the dividing line between fact and fancy, and drew on his imagination to such an extent that he almost staggered himself when he began

be there, and all my sewing is done up. If grandpa will leave the horse for me, I'll take the

y way of spendin' an afternoon. When I was a girl there was no such dawdlin' goin' on,

gs!" Rose exclaimed. "Next to danc

ks says Eben stood forty-nine in a class o' fifty-five, an' seemed consid'able proud of him; an' I guess it is the first time he ever stood anywheres but at the foot. I tell you when these fifty-five new do

rrible smart driver, an' turrible reckless, too. He'll take all the chances there is, though to a man

ndin' to his farm,"

n the river when the farm work is n't pressing. Besides, though

jest can't keep away from the logs. There's some that can't. When

uit you," remarked the old man's wife; but the interruption received no comment

lways playin' with a couple o' wild cousins o' theirn, consid'able older. Steve would scare his mother pretty nigh to death stealin' away to the mill to ri

ley; "and I don't see as all the 'cademy education his father throwed away on him has ch

s; allers choppin' up stickins an' raftin' 'em together in the pond. I cai'late Mis' Waterman died consid'able afore her time, jest from fright, lookin' out the winders and seein' her boys slipp

s men, I s'pose," in

ld horse-racin' or tiger-shootin' or tight-rope dancin'; an' he always did from a boy. When he was about twelve to fifteen, he used to help the river-drivers spring and fall, reg'lar. He could n't

om the sink. "He's still steppin' an' fetchin'

answered Rose, with heightened color, but

clear up the river-if you can call this here silv'ry streamlet a river. He'd pick off a log here an' there an' send it afloat, an' dig out them that hed got ketched in the rocks,

rs. Wiley; "specially if Rose encourages him in such silly fool

to me you might have a good word for him now an' then, mother

vory Dunn's well-curb, nor Pitt Packard's shed-steps. If you hed ever kep' up your buil

on, mother, not the motives of them as made 'em. It's turri

sed Rose, to change the subject; "but I tell him that a horse does n't revo

ke arrers shot from a bow. The boys used to collect by the side o' that there flume to see me ride a log down, an' I've watched 'em drop in a dead faint when I spun by the crowd; but land! you can't drownd some folks, not

off' some o' your steam by bringin' the butter for us afore you start for the bridge. It don't do no good to brag afo

life, dragged himself reluctantly to the shed, where, before long, one could h

road that l

ds walk tog

shows a n

and there