Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill Evenings on the Farm I m going out to clean the pasture spring; I 'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may); I shan't be gone long. — You come too. I 'm going out to fetch the little calf That's standing by the mother. It's so young. It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I shan't be gone long. — You come too. Robert Frost. When we first planned to take up the farm we looked forward with especial pleasure to our evenings. They were to be the quiet rounding-in of our days, full of companionship, full of meditation. "We'll do lots of reading aloud," I said. "And we'll have long walks. There won't be much to do but walk and read. I can hardly wait." And I chose our summer books with special reference to reading aloud. "Of course," I said, as we fell to work at our packing, "we'll have to do all sorts of things first. But the days are so long up there, and the life is very simple. And in the evenings you'll help. We ought to be settled in a week." "Or two—or three," suggested Jonathan. "Three! What is there to do?" "Farm-life is n't so blamed simple as you think." "But what is there to do? Now, listen! One day for trunks, one day for boxes and barrels, one day for closets, that's three, one for curtains, four, one day for — for the garret, that's five. Well — one day for odds and ends that I haven't thought of. That's liberal, I'm sure." "Better say the rest of your life for the odds and ends you have n't thought of," said Jonathan, as he drove the last nail in a neatly headed barrel. "Jonathan, why are you such a pessimist? " "I'm not, except when you're such an optimist." "If I'd begun by saying it would take a month, would you have said a week?" "Can't tell. Might have." "Anyway, the...