Slowly he passed, for he stopped to pick
The stones from the road with his old crook stick.
Rolled them left and rolled them right
From early morning till late at night.
And to wondering folk who paused to ask
The reasons that prompted this self-set task
He said, with a smile for their doubting gaze,
“I’m simply helpin’ ye mend your ways!”
It was August again. The flies buzzed lazily in the late afternoon hush, and the knife-nicked bench in the shade cast by Asa Brickett’s store had its accustomed row of old men, who buzzed in conversation as lazily as the flies.
“This has been about the tejousest summer I ever put through,” complained Uncle Lysimachus Buck, after a yawn. “Ev’rything seems to be deader’n the latch on a bulkhead door.”