It was at the close of our
walk, and we were slowly making our way homeward.
"An' now the year's got into what hoss-folks calls the last
quarter," remarked the old gentleman musingly. "You can feel the
frost in the atmosphere; you can see where it's bit the leaves a
lot, an' some of 'em's pale with the pain, an' others is blood-red
from the wound. "Which I don't regard winter much, say twenty years
ago. Thar's many a night when I spreads my blankets in the Colorado
hills, flakes of snow a-fallin' as soft an' big an' white as a
woman's hand, an' never heeds 'em a little bit. But them days is
gone. Thar's no roof needed in my destinies then. An' as for bed, a
slicker an' a pair of hobbles is sumptuous.
"When a gent rounds up seventy years he's mighty likely to get a
heap interested in weather. It's the heel of the hunt with him then,
an' he's worn an' tired, and turns nacherally to rest an' fire."
We plodded forward as he talked. To his sage comments on the
seasons, and as well the old age of men, I offered nothing. My
silence, however, seemed always to meet with his tacit approval; nor
did he allow it to impede his conversational flow.
"Well," observed the old fellow, after a pause, "I reckons I'll see
the winter through all right; likewise the fall.
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