A SUMMER S PIPPIN 



that he would not continue to rise and set for 

 sixty-five more. He was as punctual as the gas- 

 collector, or the seven-year locust, and he could 

 cut and pile a cord of wood without stopping to 

 take heed or take breath, and then walk to town 

 for his supplies when he wanted to save his horses. 

 Is this the standard that Nature sets up for us in 

 her ideal man ? 



Gabe had fibre, but no temperament. There 

 was a stolid independence in his unassertive air 

 that was quietly masterful. He had put away a 

 thousand dollars a year for ten years &quot; outen his 

 hay,&quot; and Heaven only knows what he had before 

 that. Panics might come, banks might break. 

 He would read of them in his weekly family paper, 

 and smile with the air of a man who has got past 

 most earthly contingencies. The old tortoise, he 

 made me feel like the agile hare in the fabulous 

 race. His lack of temperament and his static 

 health aggravated me unreasonably. A man ought 

 to decay obediently as well as develop obediently. 

 There is something repulsive in an old man who 

 preserves nothing but his physical vigour. It is 

 not even an animal, only a vegetable virtue, and 

 reminds one of the hair that grows through the 

 chinks of a coffin after a man is dead. The Doc 

 tor has amiably corroborated me, and says that a 

 man ought to begin to die gracefully at fifty. He 

 can prolong the job as long as possible, but he 

 should not neglect it. By giving up the ghost 

 gradually he will avoid a disagreeable convulsive 

 fight and not be called to give it up all at once. 



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