Century Magazine/Volume 46/Issue 4/Farmer Eli’s Vacation

FARMER ELI'S VACATION.

"IT don't seem as if we 'd really got round to it, does it, father?" asked Mrs. Pike.
The west was paling, and the August insects stirred the air with their crooning chirp. Eli and his wife sat together on the washing-bench outside the back door, waiting for the milk to cool before it should be strained. She was a large, comfortable woman, with an unlined face and smooth, fine auburn hair; he was spare and somewhat bent, with curly iron-gray locks, growing thin, and crow's-feet about his deep-set gray eyes. He had been smoking the pipe of twilight contentment, but now he took it out and laid it on the bench beside him, uncrossing his legs and straightening himself with the air of a man to whom it falls, after long pondering, to take some decisive step.
"No; it don't seem as if 't was goin' to happen," he owned. "It looked pretty dark to me all last week. It 's a good deal of an undertakin', come to think it all over. I dunno 's I care about goin'."
"Why, father! After you 've thought about it so many years and Sereno 's got the tents strapped up, and all! You must be crazy!"
"Well," said the farmer, gently, as he rose and went to carry the milk-pails int

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