Homespun Tales

e of the white birch and the scarlet of the maples. The wayside was bright with goldenro

the old people; meanwhile Stephen had learned that his maiden aunt would be glad to come and keep house for Rufus. The work at the River Farm was too hard for a girl, so he had persuaded himself of late, and the house was so far from the village that Rose was sure to be lonely. He owned a couple of acres between his place and the Edgewood bridge, and here, one afternoon only a month after their engagement, he took Rose to see the foundations of a little house he was building for her. It was to be only a story-and-a-

y he was able, with the help of two steady workers, to have the roof on before the first of November. The weather was clear and fine, and by Thanksgiving clapboards, shingl

d Rose's grandfather; "he'll tri

remarked his bet

There's good dough in Rose, but it ain't more'n half riz. Let somebody come along an' drop in a l

ome time, an' I guess he knows mo

Mr. Wiley; "but nobody's willin' to take the advice of a man that's seen the world an' lived in large places, an' the risin' generat

dinner when you was out th

d git a few shiners, but land, they wa'n't as big as the worms I w

loaded with a glass pitcher and half a dozen tumblers, which he placed carefully on the kitchen table. "This is the last day's o

s the pig 'll hev to help me out." The old man filled one of the glasses from the pitcher, pulled up the kitchen shades to the top, put both hands in his pockets, and walked solemnly round the table, gazing at his offering from every possible point of view. There had been three lemonade-sets in the window of a Biddeford crockery store when Mr. Wiley chanced to pass by, and he had

I'll settle on that; for as I was thinkin' last night in bed, lemonade is mostly an evenin' drink an' Rose won't be usin' the set much by daylight. Root beer looks the han'somest in this purple

he house itself was a foolish idea, it was thought, but there were extenuating circumstances, for the maiden aunt really needed a home, and Rufus was likely to marry before long and take his w

only master. He had many odd days to spare from his farm work, and if he had not found days he would have taken nights. Scarcely a na

ight, as the building and making of a home,-a home where two lives are to be merged in one and flow on toget

n's influence; but she had her moments of discont

her "all the rage" in Boston. She wondered if it were true, and wondered whether, if she had not promised to marry Stephen, some splendid being from a city would have descended from his heights, bearing diamonds in his hand. Not that she would have accepted them; she only wondered. These disloyal thoughts came seldom, and she put them res

the Gray Rock was a mass of curdled yellow ice, something that had only

fare of ice from Milliken's Mills to the dam at the Edgewood bridge. At sundown bonfires were built here and there on the mirror-like surface, and all the young people from the neighboring villages gathered on the ice; w

urmuring,-as he adjusted the last buckle,-"The prettiest foot and ankle on the river!" It cannot be denied that this compliment gave secret pleasure to the fair village maidens who received it, but it was a pleasure accompanied by electric sh

en Stephen took her hand and they glided upstream, alone together in the crowd, he used to wish that they mi