Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/116

  ries of outlandish, ungodly, or supernatural laziness were sacredly preserved from year to year, Caleb Kimball’s indolence easily took the palm. His hay commonly went to seed in the field. His cow yielded her morning’s milk about noon, and her evening “mess” was taken from her (when she was lucky) by the light of a lantern. He was a bachelor of forty-five, dwelt alone, had no visitors and made his living, such as it was, off the farm, with the help of a rack-o’-bones horse. He had fifty acres of timber-land, and when his easy-going methods of farming found him without money he simply sold a few trees.

The house and barn were gradually falling into ruins; the farm implements stood in the yard all winter, and the sleigh all summer. The gate flapped on its hinges, the fences were broken down, and the stone walls were full of gaps. His pipe, and a snarling rough-haired dog, were his only companions. Hour after hour he sat on the side steps looking across the sloping meadows that separated