The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-03-24

the old township in Ohio. 1t was Mrs,
Hucks who secured from that cousin
IN invitation to spend a few weeks In
the Ohio homestead. 1t was Mrs.
Hucks, again, who made her husband
happy by putting him into a %tailor's suit
the first he had bought since his we'd
ding-for the great occasion. Colonel
Hucks needed no persuasion to take
the trip. Indeed, ii was his wife's econ
omy which had kept him from being a
spendthrift and from borrowing money
with which to go, on a dozen different
occasions. E&EtGz
The day which Colonel and Mrs. Will
liam Hucks set apart for starting upon
their journey was one of those perfect
Kansas days in early October. The
rain had washed the summers dust
from the air, clearing it, and stenciling
the lights and shades very sharply. The
woods along the little stream which
flowed through the farm, had not been
greener at any time through the season q.
The second crop of grass on the hillside
almost sheened in vividness. The yell
low of the stubble in the grain fields
was all but a glittering golden. The
sky was a deep, glorious blue and the
big, downy clouds which numbered
lazily here and there in the depths of
it, appeared near and palpable.
AS Mrs. Hucks did up the break.
fast dishes for the last time before
leaving for the town to take the cars,
she began to feel that the old house
would be lonesome without her. The
silence that was about to come seemed
to her to be creeping in land it made her
feel Z" creepy" In her fancy she petted
the furniture as she "set it to rights"
saying mentally that it would be a long
time before the house would have her
care again. To Mrs. Hucks every bit
of furniture brought up its separate
recollection, and there was a Ratchet
SCARED chair in the kitchen which had
come with her in the wagon from Ohio.
Mrs. Hucks felt that she could not leave
that chair. All the while she was sing
ing softly, as she went about he simple
tasks. Her husband was puttering
around the barnyard with the dog un-
der his feet. He was repeating, for
the twentieth time, the instructions to
a neighbor about the a r of the stock,
when it occurred to him to go into the
house and dress. After this was ac-
complished, the old couple paused out
side the front door while Colonel Hucks
fumbled with the key.
AS they went down the road, each
was 10th to go and leave the place
without their care. Their ragged, un-
even talk was filled with more anxiety
about the place which they were leav-
ing than it was with the joys antici-
pated at their journeys end. Mrs.
Hucks kept reverting in her mind to
her recollection of the bedroom, which
she had left in disorder. The parlor
and the kitchen formed a mental pic.
ture in the housewives fancy, which
did not leave space for speculations
about the glories into which she was
about to mn In the cars, Colonel
Hucks found himself leaning across the
aisle, Dragging mildly about Kansas for
the benefit of a travelling man from
Cincinnati. When the colonel and his
wife spread their supper on their knees
in the Kansas City Union Depot, the
recollection that it was the little buff
Cochin pullet which they were eating
made Mrs. Hucks very homesick. The
colonel, on being reminded OF this, was
meditative also.
They arrived at their destination in
the night. Mrs. Hucks and the women
of the homestead refreshed old &C.
quaintance in the bedroom and kitchen,
while the colonel and the men sat stiff
ly in the parlor and called the roll of
the dead and the absent. In the morn
ing, while he was waiting for his break
fast, Colonel Hucks went for a prowl
down in the GOV lot. 1t seemed to him
that the creek which ran through the
lot was dry and ugly. He found a stone
upon which as a boy he had stood and
fished. He remembered it as a huge
boulder, and he had told his children
wonderful tales about it's great size. 1t
seemed to him that it had worn away
one half in thirty years. The moss on
the river bank was faded and old, and
the beauty for which he had looked was
marred by a thousand Irregularities,
which he did not recall in the picture
of the place that he had carried in his
memory since he left it.
Colonel Hucks trudged up the bank
from the stream with his hands clasped
behind him, whistling 90 Lord, re-
member me-" and trying to reconcile
the things he had seen with those he
had expected to find. At breakfast he
said nothing of his puzzle, but as Mrs.
Hucks and the colonel sat in the par.
lor alone, during the morning, while
their cousins were arranging to take
the Kansas people yer the neighbor'
hood in the buggy, Mrs. Hucks said:
Father, l have been lOokin' out
the window, and i see they've had
such a dreadful drought here. See
that grass there; it's as short and dry
and the ground looks burneder and
crackeder than ii does in Kansas"
"Uhm, yes" replied the colonel
"I had noticed that myself. Yet the
crops seem a pretty fair yield this
year"
As the buggy in which the two fam
lilies were riding rumbled over the
bridge, the colonel, who was sitting in
the front seat, turned to the woman in
the back seat and said:
"Lookie there, mother, they've go
a new mill-smaller'n the old mill
too" To which his cousin responded
"Bill Hucks, what's got into you, any
way? That's the same old mill, where
me- and Won used IN ateal nipeonsO