Eben Holden's Last Day A-Fishing

CONTENTS




NE morning in early June I was walking on a crowded thoroughfare. The earth had rolled suddenly into summer skies. Birds chattered in the parks, and I could hear a cock crow in a passing freight wagon. I stopped to listen, while he seemed to hurl defiance at his captors and all the noisy crowd, and bid them do their worst to him. His outcry put me in

mind of my own imprisonment there in the rock-bound city. As I thought of it, I could see the green hills of the North all starred with dandelions; I could hear the full flow of the streams that pass between them—you know—and that evening we were on our way to Hillsborough. Uncle Eb, then a “likely boy” of eighty-six, and Elizabeth Brower and Lucinda Bisnette were still in the old home. We had quickly planned a holiday to be full of surprise and delight for them.
They were in the midst of the days that are few and silent—those adorned with the fading flowers of old happiness and thoughts which are “the conclusion of the whole matter.” As for ourselves, we found them full of a peace and charm I would fain impart to those who read of them, if that