have to put on our go-to-meetin's, instead of sittin' down in our
shirt-sleeves comfortable like. I hain't no unison with it, and
it's been a-growing on me ever since that city chap persuaded you
into being cook and chambermaid for his family." And Farmer Atwood's
knife and fork came down into the dish of ham with an onslaught
that would have appalled a Jew.

"The governor is right, mother," said the young man referred to as
Roger. "We shall all be in strait-jackets for the summer."

The speaker could not have been much more than twenty years old,
although in form he appeared a full-grown man. As he stood wiping
his hands on a towel that hung in a corner of the large kitchen,
which, except on state occasions, also served as dining and
sitting-room, it might be noted that he was above medium height,
broad-shouldered, and strongly built. When he crossed the room his
coarse working dress could not disguise the fact that he had a fine
figure and an easy bearing of the rustic, rough-and-ready style.
He had been out in the tall, dew-drenched grass, and therefore had
tucked the lower part of his trousers in his boot tops, and, like
his father, dispensed with his coat in the warm June morning. As he
drew a chair noisily across the floor and sat down at the table, it
was evident that he had a good though undeveloped face. His upper
lip was deeply shadowed by a coming event, to which he looked
forward with no little pride, and his well-tanned cheeks could not
hide a faint glow of youthful color. One felt at a glance that
his varying expressions could scarcely fail to reveal all that
the young man was now or could ever become, for his face suggested
a nature peculiarly frank and rather matter-of-fact, or at least
unawakened. The traits of careless good-nature and self-confidence