“See here, old boy,” said the father, dropping the old ship’s cutlass with which he had begun to cut the corn-stalks, “you’re doin’ all your work a month ahead this fall. What are you goin’ to do with all your time when there’s no more work to be done?”
“I can’t say, I’m sure,” said Phil, piling an armful of stalks against a stack with more than ordinary care.
“Can’t, eh? Then I’ll have to, I s’pose, seein’ I’m your father. I guess I’ll have to send you down to New York for a month, to look aroun’ an’ see somethin’ of the world.”
Phil turned so quickly that he ruined all his elaborate work of the moment before, almost burying his father under the toppling stack.
“That went to the spot, didn’t it?” said the old man. “I mean the proposition,—not the fodder,” he continued, as he extricated himself from the mass of corn-stalks.
“It’s exactly what I’ve been wanting to do,” said Phil, “but——”
“But you didn’t like to say so, eh? Well, ’twasn’t necessary to mention it; as I told you t’other day, I can see through the back of your head any time, old boy.”
“ ‘Twouldn’t cost much money,” said Phil. “I could go down on Sol Mantring’s sloop for nothing, some time when he’s short-handed.”
“Guess I can afford to pay my oldest son’s travellin’ expenses when I send him out to see the world. You’ll go down to York by railroad, an’ in the best car, too, if there’s any difference.”
“I won’t have to buy clothes, anyhow,” said the younger man.