The Abandoned Farmers

ter County Despair Association, on account of an artesian well-or, to be e

rns amateur farmer and moves into our neighborhood, and who in developing his country place has a streak of hard labor, is eligible to join this organization. And sooner or later-but as a general thing soon

n we took title to our abandoned farm, and for the first time explored the bramble-grown valley leading up from the proposed site of our house to the woodland, we several

were speaking in burbly murmuring voices, like overflowing mouths, as they spilled forth their accumulated store o

ld possibly ever need unless we opened up a fresh-water bathing beach in the lower meadow of our place. So we dug out and stoned up the uppermost spring, which seemed to have the most generous vei

neering work that if we got into the Despair Association at all it would follow as the result of my being indicted for more or less justifiable manslaughter in having destroyed

trail that the previous tenants, through a chronic delusion, had insisted upon calling a road; and he found me up to my gills in the midst of the preliminary job of trying to decide where

meals, or to get to our beds, or to get anywhere, and altogether were existing in a state of disorder that might be likened to the

t aspect, with fine white whiskers and an engaging manner. If you can imagine one of the Minor Prophets, who had stepped right out of the Old Testament, stopping en route at a ready-made clothing store, you will have a very fair mental picture of the major as he look

ype of native-born citizen of this part of New York State who comes of an undiluted New England strain, being the descendant of pioneering Yankees who sett

ntricities of the New York cockney. Except that they dwell in proximity to it, they have nothing in common with the great city that is only thirty or forty miles away as the motorist flies. Generally they profess a c

litan life and excitement. For instance, a member of this race of beings will call a raspberry a "rosbry"; and he will call a bluebird a "blubbud," thereby displaying the inherited vernacular of the Down East country. H

and a few kitchen utensils, and one thing and another, from the seat of a chair, and begged him to sit down and make himself at home, which he did. He accepted a cigar, which I fished out of a humidor temporarily

e lawyer, searching out the

took the matter in hand fo

o," he said with an emphas

nt. Now I've just met you and, on the other hand, I've known Blank all my life; in fact, we're sort of related by marriage-a relative of his married a relative of my wife's. So, of course, I've

"-naming a prominent business man of the

understanding between those two is?

't say he wasn't. But, just between you and me, I'd think twice about taking any adv

e them one

o b

's to

as a-mind to; but I never believed in repeating anything behind a man's back I wouldn't say to his face. Live and let live!-that's my motto. Anyhow, if you've alread

d the name in rather a

. I never yet saw the architect that I'd trust as far as I could sling him by the coat-ta

been buying some

a regular accoun

es

ther. Of course, from time to time I've heard a lot of things that other people said about him; but that's only hearsay evidence, and I make it a rule n

in his customers a little. But that's no argument why he should try to take the entire hide off of 'em. They tell me Bink's bookkeeper is a regular wizard when it comes to making up an accoun

He only came to work for us thi

ularly the case with the farm laborers round here. Now you take 'Lonzo Begee's case. He never worked for me-I'm mighty careful about who I hire, lemme tell you!-but it always struck me as a strange thing th

hat suits one man don't suit another. I believe in letting a man find out about these things for himself. The bitterer the exp

or it, and he only hoped we didn't waste too much money in developing. He left me filled with so many doubts and so many misgivings that I felt congested. Within two days he was back, though, still actuate

s previous visits. Rarely did he come out in the open and accuse anybody of anything. He was too crafty, too subtle for that. The major was a regular sutler

of your own judgment. For example, there was the time, in the second month of our acquaintance I think it was, when he meandered in to inspect the work of renovation that had just been started on the stable. He spent perhaps ten

said when he was done with the inv

had been the calcul

it's the biggest mistake you ever made to put a slate roof on those sloping gables without sticki

he subject but little thought, it appeared to me that if sliding off a roof gave the snow any

ts sliding, if there's enough of it, it's purty sure to take most of

t up some anti-sliding t

tarted all over again. I judge you'll just have to let Nature take its course. I see you've g

ould-that was the in

but it looks to me like mighty faulty drainpipes the plumber's been putting in for you. You'll have to snatch all that out before a great while and have new pipes put in proper. Don't it beat all what sharpers plumbers are? But then, they're no worse than other artisans, taking them by and large. F'r instance, what could be a worse job th

ting, as accurately as I can, a c

it among them as souvenirs, if there was no honesty left anywhere in a corrupted world, what, then, was the use of living? Why not commit suicide according to one of the standard methods

isregard the major's danger signals and to steer right past them. He, though, wearied not in well-doing. At every chance he dropped in, a poison viper disguised as a philanthropist, to hang another red light on t

ajor; and at last accounts he was still going to and fro in the land, planting slanders on all likely sites. I take it that there is one counterpart for him among every so many human beings; but it is in the c