But however poor they were, every time a circus came near the town the whole family would go. The richest people in the village had never been to as many circuses as the Henry boys; and even if they knew nothing about the Romans or the Greeks, they could tell all about the latest feats of skill and strength. I often saw Ferman Henry tinkering around the mill, where he came to do some odd job to get a sack of meal or flour. Once I well remember that the water-wheel had broken down and we had to stop the mill for several days; my father tried to get him to come and fix the wheel, but he said he really had not the time,—that he must finish up his house before cold weather set in. As long as I went up and down the country road to school, I saw Ferman Henry’s unfinished house. We boys used to speculate and wonder as to when it would be done, and how it would look when it finally should be finished. Our elders always told us that Ferman Henry was too shiftless and lazy ever to complete his house, and warned us by his example. When we left our task undone, or made excuses for our idleness, they asked us if we wanted to grow up as shiftless and lazy as Ferman Henry. After I left the district school, and went the other way to the Academy in the town, I still used to hear about Ferman Henry’s house. The people at the stores would ask him how the work was coming on; and he always answered that he would plaster his house in the fall, or paint it in the spring, or finish it next year. Before I left Farmington, the growing Henry family seemed to fill every crack and crevice of the house. The kitchen had been inclosed, but the porch was not yet done. The shutters were still wanting, the plastering was not complete, and the outside was yet unpainted; but he always said that he would go at it in a few days and get it done.