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A Fireside Reflection 
{Continued from 'page 178) 
And even then two teams came dragging 
block sleighs with drafts of wood to add 
to the pile already accumulating beside 
the kitchen door. In the barnyard, 
mountainous, carefully built straw stacks 
attested the fertility—the teeming abun¬ 
dance of the farm. From the shed he 
heard the gentle complaining bleat of 
his cutter and gathered up the reins a 
neighbor came down the road standing 
erect upon the platform of his wood 
sleigh. His spirited team, chilled and 
eager for the stable and their oats, were on 
a swinging trot and every trace chain and 
bit of iron tinkled and rang on the frosty 
air. He held up his team with one firm 
hand while he beat the other arm across 
his chest to warm his numb fingers. 
When he saw that it was the doctor he 
sheep waiting for their foddering, while pulled his team to a sudden halt: “How 
from the barn came the whinney and is the Old Man?” he queried. The doc- 
stamp of horses impatient for their eve¬ 
ning meal. Externally the farm seemed 
to symbolize and exemplify peace and 
plenty and prosperity and content. 
The doctor let himself into the house 
tor’s mind was still full of the scene he had 
just left. He was by nature a man of 
gentle and charitable speech—a devout 
churchman and surely not so forgetful 
of his Hippocratic oath as to violate it by 
and climbed the broad, generous stair and gossip or facetiousness at the expense of 
went to the front chamber. In that same his patients. But as he remembered the 
room and bed more than eighty years 
before the old man had been born and 
then there had been joy and thankfulness 
and high hopes because a son had come 
to the house of Burlingame. 
grim, miserable sordid tragedy of that 
long life and the concluding act in that 
upper room which was so nearly played 
out and on which the curtain was about 
to fall forever he made answer quietly, 
unemotionally, as one who states a simple 
truth: “The Devil will have his own by 
morning.” 
*And when the first red rays of a cold 
winter sunrise came out of the East and 
flushed the snow and burned on the win¬ 
dow-panes of the old chamber where 
David lay, the doctor’s prophecy came 
true. _ 
WHEN FARMERS USED SAILS 
O NE of the most interesting bits of 
information in the recently published 
report of the Queens-Nassau Agricultural 
Society, is the reference to the fair held in 
1853. The paragraph reads as follows: 
“History informs us that in 1853 the 
fair of this Society was held at Hemp¬ 
stead. ‘The tent was 40 feet wide and 
130 feet in length, covered with sails 
from the United States ships Indepen¬ 
dence and Constitution, loaned by the 
Commodore of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.’ 
The first day the weather was ‘ extremely 
boisterous.’ On the second day, ‘the 
wind blew in fearful gusts, and much 
apprehension was felt for the safety of the 
tents,’ but the sails of * old Ironsides,’ we 
are told, ‘which had withstood the battle 
and the breeze in tougher times, defied 
old boreas bravely and all was well.’” 
I wish success to our best farm paper, the 
A. A.— Fred. M. Dodson, Catawissa, Pa. 
To the casual observer he did not ap¬ 
pear a man sick unto death. He lay 
propped high with pillows to ease his 
difficult breathing, but his eyes were 
bright and restless and his face, thin and 
flushed with fever, was still that of the 
busy, energetic, inflexible man of affairs 
—a strong man like all his race. 
Doubtless David knew that the end was 
near but at least he would not play the 
craven. He would die as he had lived. 
He would not go cringing and sniveling 
into eternity. 
He greeted the doctor with an obscene 
jest and then, by way of emphasizing his 
pleasantry, cursed the buxom, middle- 
aged woman who was his housekeeper 
(men said his mistress, as well) and who 
had busied herself with some slight task 
of the room. 
At the foot of the bed stood the nurse, 
white-gowned, calm, efficient, impersonal, 
doing her duty according to the lofty code 
of her profession. The doctor took up 
the chart of respiration, pulse and temper¬ 
ature for the day and studied it for a mo¬ 
ment or two, and asked a few brief ques¬ 
tions. Then he turned back the clothes 
and laid his keen, trained ear to the 
patient’s chest and noted the gasping, 
wheezing intake of breath through the 
solidified lungs and listened to the racing, 
pounding, over-burdened heart. He 
spoke again to the nurse and gave direc¬ 
tions concerning a sedative in case the 
patient should grow restless during the 
night. To the woman he remarked that 
he did not think that it would be neces¬ 
sary for him to call again and then his 
eyes met the inquiring glance of the nurse 
for just a fluttering second and she—she 
understood. 
* * * 
The doctor was a thoughtful man and 
as he left the house he was thinking of 
many things—things which concerned 
David and which started a train of reflec¬ 
tions going back through many years. 
Once again he was debating the age-old 
question of the theologians concerning 
the origin of evil and .the destiny of man. 
He himself was old and in his long pro¬ 
fessional career he had seen many mortals 
die. Most of them had gone out quietly, 
mercifully, unquestioningly, as a child 
turns to sleep. Others—some old and 
worn with the conflict—-some still in life’s 
golden moAiing—had gone out serenely, 
proudly, joyously, as if on a Great Adven¬ 
ture to an Undiscovered Country. A few 
stricken souls had gone out with shrinking 
terror into a darkness peopled with dread¬ 
ful shapes. (How he wished that he could 
forget these last!) But he could not 
remember any who had departed as 
David was going—clearly seeing the 
Shadow but without pretense or repen¬ 
tance or remorse. He was still thinking 
of these things while he prepared for the 
drive and unblanketed his horse. * 
The February dusk had drawn on since 
he entered the house and the bitter cold 
of another night was settling over the 
land. In the West a cold, red, sullen sun¬ 
set glowed and in the still air the orchard 
trees were sharply outlined against the 
ruddy background. Just as he got into 
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