Concerning Vacation

Allow me to present "Concerning Vacations" from The Parables of Safed the Sage. 1917 by William E. Barton.

NOW I dwelt in a city and the labor of the weeks was heavy, so it came to pass as summer approached, that every year I went on a Vacation. And ofttimes I rode upon a stage in the hills of Vermont, the Driver whereof was a man of experience. And he spake to me ofttimes, and every year this was the burden of his complaint :

Behold, thou comest here again on thy vacation, being a man who toilest not, nor spinnest, nor gatherest into barns, and the greater part of those who ride on my stage in the good old summer time come likewise; but I drive this condemned old stage year in and year out, wet or dry, hot or cold, and for forty years i have had no vacation.

Now when I had heard this many times, I wrote to the Manager of the Stage Route, saying:  Behold this driver of thy company hath served long, and hath never had a vacation; give him two weeks, that he may have a vacation like unto the rest of mankind.

And they did as I made request of them; and they sent another driver to drive the stage for two weeks, that he might have a vacation.

and the next summer as I came that way, I asked him concerning his vacation, and where and how he had spent it.  And he relieved himself of a burden he had been carrying, namely, a mouthful of tobacco juice, and thus, he made answer:

The first day, being Monday, I rode with the new driver to show him the road; and because he was slow to learn I rode with him also on Tuesday. And on Wednesday I feared lest the bay mare should have cast a shoe, and I rode with him again, and stopped at the blacksmith shop in the place midway, for there dwelleth the only smith who knoweth how to shoe horses as they ought to be shod. And on Thursday Widow Skiles was going to town, and I knew her trunk must go, and I feared lest that substitute driver should have forgotten it. And on Friday it looked as if it would rain, and was no kind of day for a man to be starting on his vacation, so I rode on the stage that day also. And on Saturday it did rain, and was no kind of day for a man to be sitting around inside the house with nothing to do, so I rode again that day. And on Monday there were a lot of city folks who had been out in the hills for the week-end, going back to the city, and some of them were a leetle mite p'tic'lar, and I thought I might as well go long, and see them git on the train. And Tuesday I realized that the time was more'n half gone, and a feller couldn't do nothing in one week nohow, so I just con-tinnered to ride on the stage with the substitute driver, and show him how. And by the end of the second week he was a pretty good driver, and if I could have had a vacation then, I could have trusted him to run the stage. Thus spake to me the driver, who had always complained that he had never had a vacation.

And I meditated much concerning what he had said to me.

And I said, 0 my God, let me not be one of those who constantly complain of the blessings they do not have, and who would not know what to do with them if they had them.