"And how do you think America is going on?"
"I HAD AN INTERESTING TALK WITH AN ANCIENT MAN BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD."
"I think she is going bad. The new generation is weak. There'll soon be no old farmer stock. The old folk work, but the children go to school. My father was an old Connecticut Yankee—a republican—so am I; but the party has broken up, the country's going wild."
The old man had a dog "Colonel," named after Colonel Somebody, who was his father's Squire in Connecticut.
"A fine dog," said I.
"More helpful than a boy," said the old farmer. "He can drive the hog home straight, and he always helps me up when I tumble down. I'm weak now—have had two strokes, and after the last I was just like a baby. I can't mow properly—no strength to move anything. Often I fall of a heap, and Colonel runs in and gets under my stomach with his head and raises me. A 'cute dog...."
A pleasant vision of not unhappy age!
I passed through Angola—a neat little city round about a shoppy square; a quiet market-place functionising the agricultural country round about. I had dinner at one of several restaurants, and had three quick-lunch courses brought to me at once—an array of nine or ten plates on a little grey stone table—not very appetising.