oak-room to make up his quorum," his
critics said.

Nothing was doing, but vast accumulations of appropriations were piling
up, waiting the hurried action of the last few days of the session. The
senators dawdled in and out dressed in the thinnest clothing; the House
looked sparse and ineffectual.

Bradley grew depressed, and at last he became positively ill. He was
depressed by the incessant relentless attacks made upon him through the
_Waterville Patriot_, and by his apparently hopeless outlook. The
_Patriot_ published some of his radical utterances much garbled, of
course, and called him "an anarchist and a socialist, a fit leader for
the repudiating gang of _alleged_ farmers in Kansas."

Radbourn became alarmed for him, and advised him to get indefinite
leave of absence and go home. "Go back into the haying-field; that's
what you need; they won't miss you here. Go home and go out of
politics, and stay out till the revolution comes; then go out and chalk
death on your enemies' door."

The advice to go home was so obviously sound that Bradley took it at
once. It seemed as if the atmosphere of the city would destroy him. As
a matter of fact it was inactivity that was killing him. He found it so
hard to exercise--except by walking, and that did not rest his
over-active mind.

XXIX.

BRADLEY DISCOURAGED.

The Judge and Mrs. Brown were alarmed at the change in him. He was
gloomy and pale, but he protested he was all right.

"I'm going out on the farm. I believe it'll do me good to go out and
help Councill put up his hay. It seems to me if I could get physically
tired and wolfishly hungry again it would do me good."

The Judge drove him out to Councill's one afternoon. Everybody they met
seemed delighted to see him. Mrs. Councill came out to the horse-block,
her bare arm held up to shield her eyes.

"Well, Brad Talcott, how are you--anyway? you're jest in time to help
me pick berries."

Bradley sprang out and shook hands with hearty force. "Give us your
dish."

"H'yare!" yelled Councill from the load of hay he was driving in, "I
can use you out here."

"Oh, you go long," replied Mrs. Councill. "He's got better company and
a better job."

Out in the berry patch he talked over the neighborhood affairs and
picked berries and killed mosquitoes, while the wind wandered by with
rustling steps on the lombardy poplar leaves. The locusts sang and the
grasshoppers snapped their shining wings. It was a ble