Country Luck

YET NO

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wistaria vine was not dragging it from its place, and had picked some bits of paper from the little grass-plot in front of the house; but each time she went from one duty to another she shaded her eyes and looked down the road over which her husband would return. She had eyes for everything outside the house,—an indication of rot at an end of one of the window-sills, a daring cocoon between two slats of a window-blind, a missing screw of the door-knob,—all trifles that had been as they were for weeks, bu

n that a middling lively shower might come due about midnight. Then he told his wife of having met the minister, who had not said anything in particular, and of a coming auction-sale of which he had heard, and how eggs for shipment to the city had “looked up” three cents per dozen. Then

erely because they had been taught in youth that uncomfortable restraint was a

s beat

ously as if he had not the slightest idea

, an’ if he’s got the things they asked him to buy for ’em, an’ not a solitary word can I say; we

e old man, going through the motions of budding an althea-bush, in the angle of the step, from a scion of its ow

at he thought of ’em. Hearin’ them big guns of the pulpit was always one of the things he wanted to go to the city for. Then there’s the bread-pan I’ve been wantin’ for ten ye

e’ll hear all we’re waitin’ for. Worry’s more weary

r Phil? I don’t see that Rome’s got anythin’ to do with the

d-off saint to be suddenly pitched from fields and woods into a great big town without bein’ dazed. When I first went down to York, my eyes was kept so wide open that I couldn’t scarcely open my mouth for a few days, mu

ver, to polish her glasses, in anticipation of what she still longed to do with them. Her husband continued to make tiny slits and cross-cut

ng’s sloop’

e so before? Sol’s seen Phil, ain’t he? What does he s

n, it don’t take that boy much time to catch on to whatever’s got go to it. Why, Sol says he’s got store-clothes on, from head to foot. That ain’t all, either; he——” Here the old man burst into laughter, which he had great difficulty in

n’ I hope he won’t bring it back here. What’ll the other members of the Young Peo

ed canes; I think I’ve seed ’em in pictures in the Illustrated Family Bible. I s’pose down in Judee ther’ wa

Sol say?” ask

, an’ had a walk on him like a sojer in a picture. I’m glad the boy’s got a chance to get the plough-handle stoop out of his shoulders for a few days. Sez you wo

could bring,” said Mrs. Hayn, replacing her spectacles in their tin case, which she close

ments sometimes say. Oh, there was one thing more Sol said: ’

ence; her husband began to throw his open

yn, after a short silence. “He isn’t the kind that our Phil would go an’ un

ggested the farmer. “Pooty much everybody knowed when I was fust gone on

“mebbe it explains why he hain’t writ. He’d want to tell

nn,” said the old farmer, rising

you mean,

at you hain’t forgot th

t she was leaning on his shoulder a moment later. “ ‘Twould be kind o’ funny if tha

it don’t work. I hope the blessed boy’s got as much good stuff in him as I’ve always counted on. The bigger the heart, the wu

“I don’t b’lieve the gal was ever made that could say no to a splendid young feller like that,—a young feller that’s han’some an’ good an’ bright an’

you did, for instance. But gals is only human,—ther’ wouldn’t be no way of keepin’ ’em on earth

but that family, through an’ through, has got sense enough to know what’s worth havin’ when they see it. She

ely think it over an’ above likely that she’d wa

fter the manner of farm-people in general, after a prayer containing a formal and somewhat indefinite petition for the absent one. The old lady lay awake for hours, it see

ave pity on my poor