250 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



No, I shall probably never become a great 

 milk-contractor. I shall probably remain only a 

 Commuter to the end. But if I never become 

 anything great, — the Father of my Country, or 

 the Father of Poetry, or the Father of Chemistry, 

 or the Father of the Flying Machine, — why, I 

 am at least the father of these four shining faces 

 in the lantern light; and I have, besides them, 

 handed down from the past, a few more of life's 

 old-fashioned inconveniences, attended, gentle 

 reader, with their simple old-fashioned blessings. 



