LET'S GO VISITING

"Let's go visiting--it's such a fine day. Let's go out to Sam's and Abner's, or mebbe we'd better go dovn to Bill Tossy's, or had ye rather go up to Mose Plummer's?"

Grandfather had just come into the kitchen from driving the cows to the upper pasture in the dewy morning, goadstick in hand, and thus addressed Grandmother in a most coaxing tone of voice, as she stood before the kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes.

But Grandmother, flustered by such an array of suitable places to visit, feigned lack of interest, and pled as an excuse for staying at home the desirability of putting the shed chamber in order. "There's lots of rubbish up there to be rid of,” she said, ”and what' s to be saved should be put to rights, and the whole place needs a good sweeping.”

"Well, jest as you've a mind to," replied Grandfather in dubious resignation. Which is to say that he was more resigned to Grandmother' s refusal to go visiting than to her suggestion that he sweep the shed chamber. Candidly, he had no bent in that direction.

"But, as I said before," continued Grandfather, in a final attempt at persuasive eloquence, “it's such a fine day, and seeing it's sort of betwixt seasons--hoeing and weeding all done, and haying coming on 'bout next week, and we can't go then.

” M-m-m-m," interposed Grandmother.

Grandfather's voice suddenly lost its coaxing tone and became matter-of-fact.

"Well, I'm going out to clean the pasture spring." (By the way, Grandfather made this statement twenty-five years before Robert Frost embodied it in a famous poem.)

Then, waxing still more emphatic, he continued, “I'm going to take along the fish pole and drop a hook into a deep pool I know of. There's an overgrown trout been hanging 'round that spot fer a year or two.” And louder, still, “it's time he had his jacket warmed in the frying pan!"

Judging from Grandfather's tone of voice at this last remark, one might well have believed that he was harboring a grudge against that overgrown trout. In reality the poor fish was getting the tongue-lashing he'd liked to have inflicted on Grandmother for her unwillingness to cooperate; and when he walked out of the room in quest of the angle-worm box, he didn't merely close the door; he slammed it, that is, mildly. In half a minute he was back again, meek as Moses. Opening the door a mere crack, be thrust in his nose, and said very sweetly: "I'll be back long before dinner time. D'ye want me to get you anything before I go?”

“Wait a minute, Pa,” Called out Grandmother to the nose sticking through the narrow slit. "Mebbe I'll go visiting with you. Yes, I think we'd better. But we've been down to Bill Tassy's since they were here. Let's go out to Sam's and Abner' s."

The door opened wider and a head came through. "Ye don't mean it, do ye--really? Oh Ma!”

I wonder if your grandfather and grandmother used to "go visiting.” They did if you were a New England back-country lad or lass in the eighties and nineties.

There were no automobiles in those days, or radios, or movies, or but few telephones.

So, if your grandparents wanted entertainment to soothe a body weary with the round of farm labor, or a mind vexed with the problem of making ends meet--balancing the budget, they used to say in Washington--they had recourse to whatever diversions the age afforded them, not the least considerable of which was to go visiting, plain, unvarnished visiting.

Of course they couldn't go visiting whenever the urge overtook them. To have done so in a community of thrifty Yankees would have brought opprobrium on their heads, and made them social outcasts. No, there was a "time for everything under the sun.” Planting, cultivating, haying, harvesting, maple sugar making, and all the rest had to be attended to in season. Moreover, when the season was "on," they were supposed to take no vacation, and listen to no Siren song until the task at hand was completed.

But there were times “betwixt seasons," to use Grandfather's apt expression, when the "stern daughter of the voice of God" didn't pound too loudly or too incessantly on the New England Conscience--breathing spells, so to speak, when one could slow up a bit, and view with satisfaction, or otherwise, the work accomplished, and, plan intelligently for work that was to come. There were times for a little vacation, like a trip to the county fair, or a more expensive "excursion" to Boston, with the inevitable climb up Bunker Hill Monument and a visit to the Navy Yard, to say nothing of a surreptitious evening at the theatre, or, what was much more respectable, a Sunday service at Treemont Temple.

There were times, also, for the less expensive luxury of just being neighborly--of going out to Sam's and Abner's and making a day of it among friends.

But in the case of my grandparents, going out to Sam's and Abner's could not be accomplished by the formula of the fairy story, "No sooner said than done."

No, it was a real event--this going to visit--and, as such, required time, both in preparation and execution. Old Flying Tiger had to be polished up with currycomb and brush, and the tangles in his heavy mane and tail straightened out. This process had no exaggerated fascination for the old horse who laid back his ears, tossed his head impatiently, and with snapping teeth made many a pass at the seat of Grandfather's trousers as the old man stooped to polish the hind fetlocks.

If Flying Tiger had to be groomed, so, also, did Grandfather. He had to be shaven and his side whiskers trimmed just as if he were going to meeting or a wedding or a funeral. There was a difference, however, with his apparel.

"What shall I wear, Ma, my second-best or my third best?” shouted Grandfather from the corner bedroom.

"Oh wear your third-best," replied Grandmother as she pottered about the kitchen in an attempt to make a spick-and-span place to return to. "You'll be going all around among the cobwebs in the hen house and cow stable. Then Abner'll have ye traipsing out to the back pasture to see the sheep and young critters, and you'll climb no less than forty-eleven splintery rail fences."

After that oration there was only one thing for Grandfather to do,----don his third-best. In fact the third-best was a pretty good-looking suit, and very neat in appearance was Grandfather when wearing it, although a critical eye might detect a suggestion of rustiness on the shoulders. At an earlier day, when it was demoted from second-best to third-best, the front edges of the coat had become slightly threadbare; but Grandmother had bound them neatly with black silk braid--an achievement which was conclusive evidence of her skill with the needle, and her spirit of frugality which had played an important part in bringing up a large family and in canceling a fair-sized mortgage. In all other respects, however, Grandfather was in his best style: :b’iled" shirt immaculately white, standing dicky, black silk cravat, fine boots that squeaked politely with their wooden pegs.

And Grandmother? Well, she donned her second-best which buttoned in front with about half as many buttons as a centipede has feet, if his name is a true indication of number. On this particular morning she began at the top button, and made the grievous mistake of thrusting button number one into buttonhole number two--a mistake she didn't discover until she tried to entice button number fifty into buttonhole number fifty only to find that the latter had accepted a previous engagement. Poor Grandmother! As she straightened up from that back-breaking ordeal, with one side of her dress an inch or two higher than the other, she could not have looked more awry had she presented to view a dislocated jaw or suddenly turned cockeyed. What a boon a zipper would have been to her as she stood there looking so helpless and utterly discouraged! And what a boon it would have been to that member of the family who went to her rescue, unbuttoned her from top to toe, buttoned her up again, placed a lace collar about her neck and fastened it with a fine gold brooch.

Shall I ever forget that June morning in the early nineties when Grandfather and Grandmother started off for their vi