Once a season Abel, who lives with his brother-in-law, "up at the crick," makes us a short visit between the seasons of haying and harvest, seeming to take a certain pleasure in doing odd chores about the place.
He has recovered some measure of his earlier tone, and though the shoulders stoop, and grayness is showing in the dark hair, he is still able to "carry on." Time and life's incessant demands are potent healers.
Standing together last September on "sunset rock," from which is to be had a view of the little cottage so long the center of his existence, Abel turned to me with something of the old earnestness and said:
"Ef I cud git the rentin' of it agin, I bleeve I'd take it, an' git a larger head o'cattle, an' do more wid the gyardenin'. Prices hes riz so."
I wasn't sorry for the practical turn of his thoughts. It was a token of returning health. Nature takes her own way and good time in covering life's chasms with fresh growth of healing green.
