nite inclination, but there
seemed no special reason why the old man should wish to "move on." He
appeared comfortable enough, pulling away at his blackened old pipe on
the bench by the door. No man above fifty, and few below that age,
enjoyed better health than he had; and many of fifty there are who
_look_ nearer death than Old Dalton did.

"Crack me a stick 'r two o' wood, grampa," his married
great-granddaughter, with whom he lived, would sometimes say; and up and
at it the old man would get--swinging his ax handily and hitting his
notch cleanly at every clip.

Assuredly, his body was a wonderful old machine--a grandfather's clock
with every wheel, bearing, and spring in perfect order and alignment.
Work had made it so, and work kept it so, for every day after his smoke
Old Dalton would fuss about at his "chores" (which, partly to please
him, were designedly left for him to do)--the changing of the bull's
tether-picket, watering the old horse, splitting the evening's wood,
keeping the fence about the house in repair, and driving the cows o'
nights into the milking-pen.

To every man in this world is assigned his duty. To every man is given
just the mental and physical equipment he needs for that duty. Some men
obtusely face away from their appointed work; some are carried afield by
exigency; some are drawn by avarice or ambition into alien paths; but a
minor proportion of happy ones follow out their destiny. There do not
occur many exceptions to the rule that the men who find their work and
do it, all other conditions being equal, not only live to old age, but
to an extreme, a desirable, a comfortable, and a natural old age.

Old Dalton had been built and outfitted to be a simple, colloquial
home-maker, family-raiser, and husbandman. His annals were never
intended to be anything more than plain and short. His was the function
of the tree--to grow healthily and vigorously; to propagate; to give
during his life, as the tree gives of its fruit and shade, such
pleasant dole and hospitable emanation as he naturally might; and in the
fullness of time to return again to the sod.

He had found and done thoroughly this appointed work of his. He was
doing it still, or at least that part of it which, at the age of one
hundred years, fittingly remained for him to do. He was tapering off,
building the crown of his good stack. When Death, the great Nimrod,
should come to Old Dalton, he would not find him ready caught in the