pipe's
drawin' real good an' nobody's thornin' me to go to work," replied 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' generation is in a
turrible hurry. I don' know how 't is: young folks air allers settin'
the clock forrard an' the old ones puttin' it back."

"Did you ketch anything for dinner when you was out this mornin'?" asked
his wife.

"No, I fished an' fished, till I was about ready to drop, an' I did git
a few shiners, but land, they wa'n't as big as the worms I was ketchin'
'em with, so i pitched 'em back in the water an' quit."

During the progress of these remarks Mr. Wiley opened the door under the
sink, and from beneath a huge iron pot drew a round tray loaded with a
glass pitcher and half a dozen tumblers, which he placed carefully
on the kitchen table. "This is the last day's option I've got on this
lemonade-set," he said, "an' if I'm goin' to Biddeford tomorrer I've got
to make up my mind here an' now."

With this observation he took off his shoes, climbed in his stocking
feet to the vantage ground of a kitchen chair, and lifted a stone china
pitcher from a corner of the highest cup-board shelf where it had been
hidden. "This lemonade's gittin' kind o' dusty," he complained. "I
cal'lated to hev a kind of a spree on it when I got through choosin'
Rose's weddin' present, but I guess 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
brought home the blue and green one on approval. To th': casual cyc it
would have appeared as quite uniquely hideous until the red and yellow
or the purple and orange ones had been seen; after that, no human
being could have made a decision, where each was so unparalleled in its
ugliness, and Old Kennebec's confusion of mind would have been perfectly
understood by the connoisseur.

"How do you like it with the lemonade in, mother?" he inquired eagerly.
"The thing that plagues me most is that the red an' yaller one I hed
home last week lights up better'n this, an' I believe I'll settle on
that; for as I was thinkin' last night in bed, lemonade is mostly an
evenin' drin