THE FATTED CALF,—BUT THE NEIGHBORS, TOO.

A thoughtful man once remarked that a special proof of divine wisdom was that the dear old story of the Prodigal Son did not reproduce any of the conversation of the neighbors with or regarding the naughty boy, for had this also been given as it really occurred, no subsequent penitent would ever have dared to follow the amateur swineherd’s example.

Philip Hayn was not a prodigal; he had spent none of his inheritance except as specially ordered by his father, and his only ground of self-reproach was regarding an affair about which the neighbors had no means of obtaining information; yet the special efforts made by the family to manifest their joy at regaining him were unequal to the task of overcoming the disquieting effects of the neighbors’ tongues. The dreadful man who had caught Phil on the train had spread the news of the boy’s return, so next morning the road from the village to Hayn Farm presented an appearance as animated as if an auction had been announced in that vicinity, or as if some one had been found dead in the woods. Men old and young, wives and maidens, and even little children, devised excuses for visiting the farm. People who came from the other direction were already{136} supplied with the standard excuse,—they wanted to borrow something; those who had really borrowed so often as to doubt their welcome made heroic efforts to return what they had already borrowed.

To escape the succession of visitors at the house, Phil went to the barn-yard to see a new family of pigs of which his little brothers had informed him, but just above the fence-line he saw two pairs of eyes—with their attendant heads, of course—that had been lying in wait for an hour or two, after the manner of that class of countrymen, evidently among the last offshoots from the brutes, who apparently have an inherited animal apprehension of harm should they enter the den of any species higher than their own.

“Guess you didn’t see any pigs like them down to York?” shouted the owner of one pair of eyes, while the other pair opened as if they would engulf the returned traveller. Phil nodded his head negatively and precipitately retreated to the barn, where he found quite a respectable old farmer studying the beach-wagon.

“Reuben reckoned mebbe he could gimme a bargain if I’d take this off his hands,” he said, by way of explanation, “so I thought I’d take a look at it.” The old man shook the wheels, tapped the bed, examined the iron-work closely, remarking, as he did so,—

“Reckon, by his wantin’ to dispose of it, that them city folks ain’t a-comin’ here next summer to be druv down to the beach,—eh?”{137}

“I don’t know,” said the unhappy youth. He was grateful to the old fellow for not looking him in the eye, like a witness-teaser, as he asked the question, yet he longed to kick him out of the barn and lock the doors, so that there would be one less place for the enemy to lie in wait. He returned to the house, and entered the kitchen just in time to hear a feminine neighbor say,—

“I s’pose he’ll wear his new clothes—them that Sol Mantring fetched word about—to church on Sunday?”

Phil abruptly got an axe and went to the wood-lot; his first impulse was to take his gun, but half in jest and half in earnest he told himself that he would not dare to have arms in his hands if the torment was to continue. Yet even while in the depths of the ancestral forest he was not safe, for, on the hollow pretence of tracking a dog who had been stealing sheep, a neighbor followed Phil to the woods, found him by the tell-tale blows of the axe, and had him at his mercy for a full hour: the visitor had mentally set apart a half-day for the work.

“There’s one way o’ gettin’ rid of this raft o’ people,” said Mrs. Hayn, who rapidly became as indignant as her son at the persistency with which people brought Lucia’s name into conversation. “One would s’pose that the world had got back to the way it was in old Father Adam’s day, as far as gals was concerned, an’ there was only one female that anybody could take a notion to. They come a-pesterin’ the life out o’ me, just as if I knowed any more about it than they do,—which I don’t.” Then{138} the anxious mother looked slyly, and somewhat reproachfully, at her son, who flushed and said,—

“Tell us the way of getting out of it, mother, and at least one of your children will arise and call you blessed.”

“Why, it’s to have the minister an’ his wife to tea. It’s manners, an’ pretty much everybody knows it, not to disturb anybody the day they’re goin’ to have the minister.”

“Let’s have him,” said Phil, eagerly; “I’ll do anything to help you get ready,—beat eggs, stone raisins,—anything but go to the store for nutmegs and be caught by the proprietor and all his customers. S............