afford me
much information concerning the Rev. _Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I
started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed
me and recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller, one-eyed cow that didn't have no
tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and----"

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear
about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

ELDER BROWN'S BACKSLIDE

By Harry Stillwell Edwards (1855- )

[From _Harper's Magazine_, August, 1885; copyright, 1885, by Harper &
Bros.; republished in the volume, _Two Runaways, and Other Stories_
(1889), by Harry Stillwell Edwards (The Century Co.).]

Elder Brown told his wife good-by at the farmhouse door as
mechanically as though his proposed trip to Macon, ten miles away, was
an everyday affair, while, as a matter of fact, many years had elapsed
since unaccompanied he set foot in the city. He did not kiss her. Many
very good men never kiss their wives. But small blame attaches to the
elder for his omission on this occasion, since his wife had long ago
discouraged all amorous demonstrations on the part of her liege lord,
and at this particular moment was filling the parting moments with a
rattling list of directions concerning thread, buttons, hooks,
needles, and all the many etceteras of an industrious housewife's
basket. The elder was laboriously assorting these postscript
commissions in his memory, well knowing that to return with any one of
them neglected would cause trouble in the family circle.

Elder Brown mounted his patient steed that stood sleepily motionless
in the warm sunlight, with his great pointed ears displayed to the
right and left, as though their owner had grown tired of the life
burden their weight inflicted upon him, and was, old soldier fashion,
ready to forego the once rigid alertness of early training for the
pleasures of frequent rest on arms.

"And, elder, don't you forgit them caliker scraps, or you'll be
wantin' kiver soon an' no kiver will be a-comin'."

Elder Brown did not turn his head, but merely let the whip hand, which
had been checked in its backward motion, fall as he answered
mechanically. The beast he bestrode responded with a rapid whisking of
its tail and a great show of effort, as it ambled off down the sandy
road, the rider's long legs seeming now and then to touch the ground.

But as the zigzag panels of the rail fence crept behind him,