The Life of Nancy by Sarah Orne Jewett

At noon the next day Israel Haydon and his son William came up across the field together. They had on their every-day clothes, and were talking about every-day matters as they walked along. Mr. Haydon himself had always looked somewhat unlike a farmer, even though there had been no more diligent and successful tiller of the soil in the town of Atfield. He never had bought himself a rougher suit of clothes or a coarse hat for haying, but his discarded Sunday best in various states of decadence served him for barn and field. It was proverbial that a silk hat lasted him five years for best and ten for common; but whatever he might be doing, Israel Haydon always preserved an air of unmistakable dignity. He was even a little ministerial in his look; there had been a minister in the family two or three generations back. Mr. Haydon and his wife had each inherited some money. They were by nature thrifty, and now their only son was well married, with a good farm of his own, to which Israel had added many acres of hay land and tillage, saying that he was getting old, and was going to take the rest of his life easily. In this way the old people had thrown many of their worldly cares upon their son's broad shoulders. They had paid visits each summer to their kindred in surrounding towns, starting off in their Sunday chaise with sober pleasure, serene in their prosperity, and free from any dark anticipations, although they could not bring themselves to consent to any long absence, and the temptation of going to see friends in the West was never dangerous to their peace of mind.

But the best of their lives was apparently still before them, when good Martha Haydon's strength mysteriously failed; and one dark day the doctor, whom Israel Haydon had anxiously questioned behind the wood-pile, just out of sight from his wife's window -- the doctor had said that she never would be any better. The downfall of his happiness had been swift and piteous. William Haydon was a much larger and rosier man than his father had ever been; the old man looked shrunken as they crossed the field together. They had prolonged their talk about letting the great south field lie fallow, and about some new Hereford cattle that the young farmer had just bought, until nothing more was left to say on either side. Then there came a long pause, when each waited for the other to speak. William grew impatient at last.