attend at twelve forty-five in the state temple, where we sanctify
some new idol. If not so I would have asked you to spend the day
with me. They are dam-bore, these religious ceremonies, Finlinson,
eh?"

Peroo, well known to the crew, had possessed himself of the inlaid
wheel, and was taking the launch craftily up-stream. But while he
steered he was, in his mind, handling two feet of partially untwisted
wire-rope; and the back upon which he beat was the back of his guru.




A WALKING DELEGATE


According to the custom of Vermont, Sunday afternoon is salting-time
on the farm, and, unless something very important happens, we attend
to the salting ourselves. Dave and Pete, the red oxen, are treated
first; they stay in the home meadow ready for work on Monday. Then
come the cows, with Pan, the calf, who should have been turned into
veal long ago, but survived on account of his manners; and lastly
the horses, scattered through the seventy acres of the Back Pasture.

You must go down by the brook that feeds the clicking, bubbling
water-ram; up through the sugar-bush, where the young maple
undergrowth closes round you like a shallow sea; next follow the
faint line of an old county-road running past two green hollows
fringed with wild rose that mark the cellars of two ruined houses;
then by Lost Orchard, where nobody ever comes except in cider-time;