smile of calm resignation lit up his wrinkled face, as he said, "Now, sir, I am ready!" "What mean you, old man ?” I said. "I mean that if you continner to bran'ish that blade as you have been bran'ishin' it, you'll slash h- out of some of us before we're a hour older!" There was some reason mingled with this whitehaired old peasant's profanity. It was true that I had twice escaped mowing off his son's legs, and his father was perhaps naturally alarmed. I went and sat down under a tree. "I never know'd a literary man in my life," I overheard the old man say, "that know'd anything." Mr. Perkins was not as valuable to me this season as I had fancied he might be. Every afternoon he disappeared from the field regularly, and remained about some two hours. He said it was headache. He inherited it from his mother. His mother was often taken in that way, and suffered a great deal. At the end of the two hours Mr. Perkins would reappear with his head neatly done up in a large wet rag, and say he "felt better." One afternoon it so happened that I soon followed the invalid to the house, and as I neared the porch I heard a female voice energetically observe, "You stop!" It was the voice of the hired girl, and she added, "I'll holler for Mr. Brown!" "Oh no, Nancy," I heard the invalid E. Perkins soothingly say, "Mr. Brown knows I love you. Mr. Brown approves of it!" This was pleasant for Mr. Brown! I peered cautiously through the kitchen-blinds, and, however unnatural it may appear, the lips of Eli Perkins and my hired girl were very near together. She said, "You shan't do so," and he do-soed. She also said she would get right up and go away, and as an evidence that she was thoroughly in earnest about it, she remained where she was. They are married now, and Mr. Perkins is troubled no more with the headache. This year we are planting corn. Mr. Perkins writes me that " on accounts of no skare krows bein put up krows cum and digged fust crop up but soon got nother in. Old Bisbee who was frade youd cut his sons leggs of Ses you bet go and stan up in feeld yrself with dressin gownd on & gesses krows will keep way. this made Boys in store larf. no More terday from "Yours "respecful "ELI PERKINS, "his letter." My friend Mr. D. T. T. Moore, of the Rural New Yorker, thinks if I "keep on " I will get in the Poor House in about two years. If you think the honest old farmers of Barclay County want me, I will come. Truly Yours, CHARLES F. BROWNE. |