AN INDIAN-SUMMER REVERIE BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL What visionary tints the year puts on, The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair! How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, Clasped by the faint horizon's languid arms, Each into each, the hazy distances! The softened season all the landscape charms; Those hills, my native village that embay, In waves of dreamier purple roll away, And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.. Abridged. THE SIMPLE OLD MAN AN OLD ENGLISH BALLAD RETOLD "Wife," said the simple old man, "it's time to pay the rent. How many pounds have we in the house? I must get on old Tib and hobble along the way to see the landlord." "There's the forty pounds that we saved for the last half-year's rent, and that's under the stone in the fireplace; and there's the five shillings and three pence that's in the pocket of my best church gown; and there's nineteen shillings and five pence and one farthing that's put up in the hole in the chimney; and there's a penny that I found in the road as I was coming home from the fair; and there's twenty pounds and one shilling and four pence that we got for the butter and the eggs, only they brought twoscore of the eggs back again after they had kept them so long that they were addled; and there's the money for the sheep's wool, and that's out in the corner of old Tib's stall under a wisp of hay, lest thieves should come upon us of a sudden. It's all put convenient and near to hand, so that if the house were afire we could find it in the wink of a cat's eye, and take care of it. That's not all, for under the head of the bed in the west room there's a box, and in the box there's a wooden bucket, and in the bucket there's six pounds and eleven shillings and ten pence; and under the front doorstep"-but the simple old man looked bewildered, and began to shake his head and rub his eyes. "Wife," said he, "couldn't you get it together and heap it up and tell me if it's all right? Then I'll get on old Tib and go to the landlord, and I'll say, 'Here's the forty pounds for the last half-year, and here's the forty pounds for this half-year. I'm not very good at the learning, but wife says it's all right."" my 66 "I do believe," rejoined the wife rather sharply, "that I'd better get on old Tib and go myself." "I wish you would, I wish you would," pleaded the simple old man meekly. "I'm always afeard I'll lose some of the money and be hanged for it." "No, I'll not go either," said his wife. "What's the use of having a man if he can't do what you tell him?" And so the simple old man got on old Tib and started out of the gate. "Now, if you meet a thief on the highway, remember to tell him that you're going to pay the landlord, and that you have four-score pounds in your leather saddle. You're so simple that I really believe it's just what you would do," she said to herself as she shut the door with a slam. She would have been more anxious if she had heard the old man's humble promise, "Yes, wife, I'll do just what you tell me," as he went out of the gate and into the road. As he was jogging along the highway, who should come up to him but a fine gentleman riding on a noble black horse, with silver mountings to his saddle and a handsome black portmanteau with silver at the corners. "Good-morning," said the fine gentleman, and the simple old man answered humbly, "Good-morning, and thank you kindly, sir, for speaking so friendly like to a plain old man like me." "How far are you going?" asked the fine gentleman; and the old man smiled and answered with a good deal of pride for so humble an old man, "I'm going to pay my rent, sir. It's only two miles away, sir, where my landlord lives. I didn't pay him the last half-year, but, indeed, sir, it wasn't my fault, for he was away." "And so you're going to pay him now, are you?' 66 Yes," said the simple old man, "I have forty pounds for the last half-year's rent and forty pounds for this halfyear's rent. My wife says it's all right, and she's good at the counting, my wife is; and she told me that's what I must say if any one asked me. Some of it's from the butter and some of it's from the wool, and there's a penny that my wife picked up in the road when she came from the fair, but she says it is all right." "Then it must be," declared the fine gentleman, "but there's many a thief going about these days, and you ought not to tell any one about your money; you might be robbed." "Oh no, my wife is far wiser than that," said the simple old man, "for she put all the money in my saddle, where no one would lock for it." So the two jogged pleasantly along together, and the old man said to himself that he had never before seen a fine gentleman who was so gracious to him. The fine gentleman asked him about his sheep and how he cared for them, and about his old horse Tib, and how long he had had her. The old man was just telling about what a fine colt she was only twenty-nine years ago, when the road made a sharp turn down a hill, with a brook at the bottom, and trees growing thickly all around, and the fine gentleman pulled out a pistol and pointed it full at the simple old man and said, "Stand still and give me your money!" but the simple old man hesitated and asked, "Please tell me, sir, are you a thief?" and the fine gentleman answered, "There's better names for it than that, but what do you want to know for?" and the simple old man replied, "My wife told me that if I met a thief on the highway, I was to tell him that I was going to pay the rent, and that I had four-score pounds in my saddle; but she did not tell me what to do if he told me to give it to him. I'll have to follow my own wit, and, indeed, I haven't much; so I'll just fling the saddle over the hedge and be rid of it.” The thief threw back his head and laughed. "Your |