"Well, I'm eighty-three now, you know," he said slowly. "It can hardly be such a very great while."
I shook my head by way of protest, for the thought was an exceedingly unpleasant one.
However, the old gentleman only laughed again.
"No, it can hardly be such a very great while," he repeated.
But he lived to be ninety-eight, and I can truly say that those last years with him at the old farm, going about or driving round together, were the happiest of my life.
CHAPTER XVII
OUR FOURTH OF JULY AT THE DEN
Farm work as usual occupied us quite closely during May and June that year; and ere long we began to think of what we would do on the approaching Fourth of July. So far as we could hear, no public celebration was being planned either at the village in our own town, or in any of the towns immediately adjoining. Apparently we would have to organize our own celebration, if we had one; and after talking the matter over with the other young folks of the school district, we decided to celebrate the day by making a picnic excursion to the "Den," and carrying out a long contemplated plan for exploring it.
The Den was a pokerish cavern near Overset Pond, nine or ten miles to the northeast of the old Squire's place, about which clung many legends.