§ 119 He Wouldn’t Commit Himself Yet
The conservation of the Down-East farmer is proverbial. Possibly this trait is a heritage of his Puritan ancestry.
Be that as it may, the fact remains that he is extremely careful to refrain from overstatement or exaggeration. A point in illustration is found in the story of the elderly Vermonter who was bringing in hay from his ancestral meadow. Seated upon a fragrant two-ton load he had guided his double team almost to the doors of his barn when one of the front wheels twisted on an outcrop of granite and the cargo capsized, precipitating the husbandman to the stony earth with great violence and entirely burying him under the mound of timothy.
The two hired hands leaped to the rescue. They forked away the hay and after several minutes of strenuous endeavor dug out their employer. He was speechless for the time being and half-suffocated. There was a bump on his forehead and one arm dangled to prove that his shoulder-blade had been snapped. As they propped the victim against the softer side of a handy boulder his son, who had been at work in the hayfield and who had been summoned by the cries of the rescuers, came running up. Filled with alarm and solicitude the younger man put a question which seemed somewhat superfluous but which, in view of his fright, was perfectly natural.
“Paw,” he cried as he bent over his parent, “did it hurt you?”
“Wall, son,” said the old man slowly, and measuring his words, “I wouldn’t go so fur as to say it’s done me any real good.”