Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-08-18
FARMER ELLIS VACATION.

at 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 grooming
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 some
what 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 be-
side him, increasing his legs and straight
ening himself with the air of man to
whom it falls, after long pondering to take
some decisive steY.
"No; it don't seem as if t was goin' to
happen" he owned at looked pretty dark
to me all last week. It's a good deal of an
undertaken, come to think it all over.
dunno's l 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 crazyn'
"Well," said the farmer, gently, as he
rose and went to carry the milk pals into
the pantry, calling coaXingly, as he did so,
"Kitty kitty! You had your milk. Don't
you joggle nowr' For one eager tabby
rose on her hind legs in purring haste, and
hit her nose against the foaming saucer.
Mrs. Pike came ponderously to her feet,
and followed with the heavy, swaying mo-
ton of one grown 1eshy and rheumatic.
She was not in the least concerned about
Ellis change of mood. He was a gentle
soul, and she had always been able to guide
him in paths of her own choosing. More
over, the present undertaking was one in
volving his own good fortune, and she
meant to tolerate no foolish scruples which
might interfere with its result. For Eli
though he had lived all his life within
thirty miles of the ocean, had never seen it,
and ever since his boyhood he had cher
ished one darling plan; some day he would
go to the shore and camp out there for a
week. This, in his starved imagination
was like dream of the Acropolis to an
artist stricken blind, or as mountain out
lines to the dweller in a lonely plain. But
the years had fitted past, and the dream
never seemed nearer completion. There
were always planting, haying, and harvest
ing to be considered, and though he was
fairly prosperous, excursions were foreign
to his simple habit of life. But at last his
wife had stepped into the van, and organ
lied an expedition, with all the valor of a
Sir Francis Drake.
snow, don't you say one word, father"
she had said. "We're goin' down to the
beach, Serene and Hattie and you and me,
and we're goin to camp out. It'll do us
all good"
For days before the date of the excursion
Eli had been solemn and tremulous, as with
joy; but now, on the eve of the great event,
he shrank back from it with an underlined
notion that it was like death, and that he
was not prepared. Next morning, however,
when they all rose and took their early
breakfast, preparatory to starting at five,
he showed no sign of indecision, and even
went about his outdoor tasks with an alac-
rity calculated, as his wife approvingly re-
marked to ''for'a ard the v'y'ge." He had
at last begun to see his way clear, and he
looked we'll satisfied when his daughter
Hattie and Serene, her husband, drove into
the yard in a wagon cheerfully suggestive
of a wandering life. The tents and a small
hair trunk were stored in the back, and the
horses pail swung below.
"Well, father" called Hattie, her rosy face
like flower under the large shade hat she
had trimmed for the occasion, "guess we're
goin' to have a good day."
He nodded from the window where he
was patiently holding his head high and
undergoing strangulation, while his wife,
breathing huskily with haste and impor.
lance, put on his stock.
"You come in, Hattie, and help pack the
doughnuts into that lard pail on the table, -
she called. 81 guess you'll have to take
two pals. They amt very big"
At length the two teams were ready, and
Eli mounted to his place, where he looked
very slender beside his towering mate. The
hired man stood leaning on the pump
chewing bit of straw, and the cats rubbed
against his legs, with tails like banners
they were all impressed by sense of the
unusual.
"Well, good-by, Luke" Mrs. Pike called
over her shoulder; and Eli gave the man a
solemn nod, gathered up the reins, anC
drove out of the yard. Just outside the
gate he pulled up.
"WhoaV - he called, and Luke loungeC
forward. "DOn't you forget them cats
Get up, DOLL" And this time they wer'
gone.
For the first ten miles of the way, famil
lar in being the road to market, Eli wa
placidly cheerful. The sense that he wa
going to do some strange deed, to step into
an unknown country, dropped away from
him, and he chatted, in his intermittent
serious way, of the crops and the lay of tn,
land.
"Pretty bad job up along here, amt it
father?" called Serene, as they passed
sterile pasture which two plodding men anC
yoke of oxen were redeeming from it
rocky letters.
"There S a good deal of pastur' in som,
places that amt fit for nothin' but to holC
the world together" returned Eli and thel
he was silent, his eyes fixed on Dolls elo
quent ears, his mouth working a little
For this progress through a less desirable
stratum of life caused him to cast back