The Chronic Loafer arose from the bench and stepped to the edge of the porch. He rested his left hand on the pillar, thrust his right hand into his pocket and gazed searchingly at the mountains.
“What’s keepin’ you so quiet to-day?” asked the Teacher, lifting his eyes from the county paper. “One might suppose from the way you was watchin’ those mountains, you was expectin’ them to come over here so you could go fishin’.”
The Loafer turned and looked down on the pedagogue. There was pity in his eyes and disdain lurking about the corners of his mouth.
“Well, you don’t feel hurt, do you?” snapped the Teacher.
“I guess you never fished,” was the reply.
“To tell the truth I prefer more active pursuits.” The learned man said this with the air of one who was in the front rank in the great battle of life. “I prefer doin’ things to loungin’ along a creek tryin’ to catch a few small trout that never did me any harm.”
“I thot you’d never fished much,” said the Loafer, letting himself down on the steps and getting out his pipe. “Ef you hed you’d know that half the pleasure of it is gittin’ to the stream. You figure on how nice it’ll be ’hen you’re away from the dusty road, in the woods, lyin’ in the grass ’longside of a cool, gurglin’ pool, with the trout squabblin’ among themselves to git at your bait. You arrive there, an’ first thing you set on a rattlesnake. That makes you oneasy fer the rest o’ the day. Then you find you’ve left your bait-can at home an’ stirs up some yeller-jackets, ez you are huntin’ under rocks fer worms. You lays down your extry hooks where you can find ’em quick, an’ then ’hen you need ’em you discovers they’re in your foot. No, sir, ef I was wantin’ to go fishin’ in them mo’ntains, an’ I hed the power, I’d tell ’em to git back five mile so I’d hev furder to walk to reach the run.”
“I hain’t got nawthin’ agin your idees o’ fishin’,” said the Patriarch from his place on the bench between the Tinsmith and the G. A. R. Man, “but what you say about expectin’ is ridic’lous. You was sayin’ a bit ago that you was goin’ to hev chicken an’ waffles fer supper to-night. You’ve put in a fine day expectin’ it. But ef you goes home an’ sets down to sausage an’ zulicks, I can see things flyin’ ’round your shanty most amazin’. All the joys o’ expectation ’ll be wiped outen your mind by dissypintment.”
“But you are talkin’ o’ great expectations, Gran’pap,” said the Loafer. “They result in great dissypintments. I’ve been speakin’ o’ the leetle things o’ life. Now there’s the old soldier.” He pointed to the veteran. “He was eight year expectin’ to git a pension. He talked o’ nawthin’ else. Ef he’d only git it he’d be happy. Well, he got it, an’ he lost the pleasure o’ lookin’ for’a’d to it. Is he satisfied? No. He’s jest put in wouchers claimin’ that th’ee new diseases hev cropped out on him an’ that he laid the foundations fer ’em in the Wilderness thirty year ago. He wants a raise. He’s happy agin, fer he is expectin’.”
The G. A. R. Man arose.