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Rudder Grange

by Frank R. Stockton · English · Gutenberg #2011 · 369,124 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Rudder Grange

Author: Frank R. Stockton


        
Release date: December 1, 1999 [eBook #2011]
                Most recently updated: March 12, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2011

Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUDDER GRANGE ***




Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





RUDDER GRANGE

By Frank R. Stockton




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Dwelling-house


  CHAPTER II.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Boarder


  CHAPTER III.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Girl


  CHAPTER IV.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Burglar


  CHAPTER V.

  Pomona Produces a Partial Revolution in Rudder Grange


  CHAPTER VI.

  The New Rudder Grange


  CHAPTER VII.

  Treating of an Unsuccessful Broker and a Dog


  CHAPTER VIII.

  Pomona Once More


  CHAPTER IX.

  We Camp Out


  CHAPTER X.

  Wet Blankets


  CHAPTER XI.

  The Boarder's Visit


  CHAPTER XII.

  Lord Edward and the Tree-man


  CHAPTER XIII.

  Pomona's Novel


  CHAPTER XIV.

  Pomona takes a Bridal Trip


  CHAPTER XV.

  In which two New Friends disport themselves


  CHAPTER XVI.

  In which an Old Friend appears, and the Bridal Trip takes a Fresh Start


  CHAPTER XVII.

  In which we take a Vacation and look for David Dutton


  CHAPTER XVIII.

  Our Tavern


  CHAPTER XIX.

  The Baby at Rudder Grange


  CHAPTER XX.

  The Other Baby at Rudder Grange




RUDDER GRANGE.



CHAPTER I. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF DWELLING HOUSE.


For some months after our marriage, Euphemia and I boarded. But we did
not like it. Indeed, there was no reason why we should like it. Euphemia
said that she never felt at home except when she was out, which feeling,
indicating such an excessively unphilosophic state of mind, was enough
to make me desire to have a home of my own, where, except upon rare and
exceptional occasions, my wife would never care to go out.

If you should want to rent a house, there are three ways to find one.
One way is to advertise; another is to read the advertisements of other
people. This is a comparatively cheap way. A third method is to apply to
an agent. But none of these plans are worth anything. The proper way
is to know some one who will tell you of a house that will exactly suit
you. Euphemia and I thoroughly investigated this matter, and I know that
what I say is a fact.

We tried all the plans. When we advertised, we had about a dozen
admirable answers, but in these, although everything seemed to suit, the
amount of rent was not named. (None of those in which the rent was named
would do at all.) And when I went to see the owners, or agents of these
suitable houses, they asked much higher rents than those mentioned in
the unavailable answers--and this, notwithstanding the fact that they
always asserted that their terms were either very reasonable or else
greatly reduced on account of the season being advanced. (It was now the
fifteenth of May.)

Euphemia and I once wrote a book,--this was just before we were
married,--in which we told young married people how to go to
housekeeping and how much it would cost them. We knew all about it, for
we had asked several people. Now the prices demanded as yearly rental
for small furnished houses, by the owners and agents of whom I have been
speaking, were, in many cases, more than we had stated a house could be
bought and furnished for!

The advertisements of other people did not serve any better. There was
always something wrong about the houses when we made close inquiries,
and the trouble was generally in regard to the rent. With agents we
had a little better fortune. Euphemia sometimes went with me on my
expeditions to real estate offices, and she remarked that these offices
were always in the basement, or else you had to go up to them in an
elevator. There was nothing between these extremes. And it was a good
deal the same way, she said, with their houses. They were all very low
indeed in price and quality, or else too high.

One trouble was that we wanted a house in a country place, not very far
from the city, and not very far from the railroad station or steamboat
landing. We also wanted the house to be nicely shaded and fully
furnished, and not to be in a malarial neighborhood, or one infested by
mosquitoes.

“If we do go to housekeeping,” said Euphemia, “we might as well get a
house to suit us while we are about it. Moving is more expensive than a
fire.”

There was one man who offered us a house that almost suited us. It was
near the water, had rooms enough, and some--but not very much--ground,
and was very accessible to the city. The rent, too, was quite
reasonable. But the house was unfurnished. The agent, however, did not
think that this would present any obstacle to our taking it. He was
sure that the owner would furnish it if we paid him ten per cent, on the
value of the furniture he put into it. We agreed that if the landlord
would do this and let us furnish the house according to the plans laid
down in our book, that we would take the house. But unfortunately this
arrangement did not suit the landlord, although he was in the habit of
furnishing houses for tenants and charging them ten per cent. on the
cost.

I saw him myself and talked to him about it.

“But you see,” said he, when I had shown him our list of articles
necessary for the furnishing of a house, “it would not pay me to buy
all these things, and rent them out to you. If you only wanted heavy
furniture, which would last for years, the plan would answer, but you
want everything. I believe the small conveniences you have on this list
come to more money than the furniture and carpets.”

“Oh, yes,” said I. “We are not so very particular about furniture
and carpets, but these little conveniences are the things that make
housekeeping pleasant, and,--speaking from a common-sense point of
view,--profitable.”

“That may be,” he answered, “but I can't afford to make matters pleasant
and profitable for you in that way. Now, then, let us look at one or two
particulars. Here, on your list, is an ice-pick: twenty-five cents.
Now, if I buy that ice-pick and rent it to you at two and a-half cents
a year, I shall not get my money back unless it lasts you ten years. And
even then, as it is not probable that I can sell that ice-pick after
you have used it for ten years, I shall have made nothing at all by
my bargain. And there are other things in that list, such as
feather-dusters and lamp-chimneys, that couldn't possibly last ten
years. Don't you see my position?”

I saw it. We did not get that furnished house. Euphemia was greatly
disappointed.

“It would have been just splendid,” she said, “to have taken our book
and have ordered all these things at the stores, one after another,
without even being obliged to ask the price.”

I had my private doubts in regard to this matter of price. I am afraid
that Euphemia generally set down the lowest price and the best things.
She did not mean to mislead, and her plan certainly made our book
attractive. But it did not work very well in practice. We have a friend
who undertook to furnish her house by our book, and she never could get
the things as cheaply as we had them quoted.

“But you see,” said Euphemia, to her, “we had to put them down at very
low prices, because the model house we speak of in the book is to be
entirely furnished for just so much.”

But, in spite of this explanation, the lady was not satisfied.

We found ourselves obliged to give up the idea of a furnished house. We
would have taken an unfurnished one and furnished it ourselves, but we
had not money enough. We were dreadfully afraid that we should have to
continue to board.

It was now getting on toward summer, at least there was only a part of
a month of spring left, and whenever I could get off from my business
Euphemia and I made little excursions into the country round about the
city. One afternoon we went up the river, and there we saw a sight that
transfixed us, as it were. On the bank, a mile or so above the city,
stood a canal-boat. I say stood, because it was so firmly imbedded
in the ground by the river-side, that it would have been almost as
impossible to move it as to have turned the Sphinx around. This boat we
soon found was inhabited by an oyster-man and his family. They had lived
there for many years and were really doing quite well. The boat was
divided, inside, into rooms, and these were papered and painted and
nicely furnished. There was a kitchen, a living-room, a parlor and
bedrooms. There were all sorts of conveniences--carpets on the floors,
pictures, and everything, at least so it seemed to us, to make a home
comfortable. This was not all done at once, the oyster-man told me. They
had lived there for years and had gradually added this and that until
the place was as we saw it. He had an oyster-bed out in the river and
he made cider in the winter, but where he got the apples I don't know.
There was really no reason why he should not get rich in time.

Well, we went all over that house and we praised everything so much that
the oyster-man's wife was delighted, and when we had some stewed oysters
afterward,--eating them at a little table under a tree near by,--I
believe that she picked out the very largest oysters she had, to stew
for us. When we had finished our supper and had paid for it, and were
going down to take our little boat again,--for we had rowed up the
river,--Euphemia stopped and looked around her. Then she clasped her
hands and exclaimed in an ecstatic undertone:

“We must have a canal-boat!”

And she never swerved from that determination.

After I had seriously thought over the matter, I could see no good
reason against adopting this plan. It would certainly be a cheap method
of living, and it would really be housekeeping. I grew more and more in
favor of it. After what the oyster-man had done, what might not we do?
HE had never written a book on housekeeping, nor, in all probability,
had he considered the matter, philosophically, for one moment in all his
life.

But it was not an easy thing to find a canal-boat. There were none
advertised for rent--at least, not for housekeeping purposes.

We made many inquiries and took many a long walk along the water-courses
in the vicinity of the city, but all in vain. Of course, we talked a
great deal about our project and our friends became greatly interested
in it, and, of course, too, they gave us a great deal of advice, but we
didn't mind that. We were philosophical enough to know that you can't
have shad without bones. They were good friends and, by being careful in
regard to the advice, it didn't interfere with our comfort.

We were beginning to be discouraged, at least Euphemia was. Her
discouragement is like water-cresses, it generally comes up in a very
short time after she sows her wishes. But then it withers away rapidly,
which is a comfort. One evening we were sitting, rather disconsolately,
in our room, and I was reading out the advertisements of country board
in a newspaper, when in rushed Dr. Heare--one of our old friends. He was
so full of something that he had to say that he didn't even ask us how
we were. In fact, he didn't appear to want to know.

“I tell you what it is,” said he, “I have found just the very thing you
want.”

“A canal-boat?” I cried.

“Yes,” said he, “a canal-boat.”

“Furnished?” asked Euphemia, her eyes glistening.

“Well, no,” answered the doctor, “I don't think you could expect that.”

“But we can't live on the bare floor,” said Euphemia; “our house MUST be
furnished.”

“Well, then, I suppose this won't do,” said the doctor, ruefully, “for
there isn't so much as a boot-jack in it. It has most things that
are necessary for a boat, but it hasn't anything that you could call
house-furniture; but, dear me, I should think you could furnish it very
cheaply and comfortably out of your book.”

“Very true,” said Euphemia, “if we could pick out the cheapest things
and then get some folks to buy a lot of the books.”

“We could begin with very little,” said I, trying hard to keep calm.

“Certainly,” said the doctor, “you need make no more rooms, at first,
than you could furnish.”

“Then there are no rooms,” said Euphemia.

“No, there is nothing but one vast apartment extending from stem to
stern.”

“Won't it be glorious!” said Euphemia to me. “We can first make a
kitchen, and then a dining-room, and a bedroom, and then a parlor--just
in the order in which our book says they ought to be furnished.”

“Glorious!” I cried, no longer able to contain my enthusiasm; “I should
think so. Doctor, where is this canal-boat?”

The doctor then went into a detailed statement. The boat was stranded
on the shore of the Scoldsbury river not far below Ginx's. We knew where
Ginx's was, because we had spent a very happy day there, during our
honeymoon.

The boat was a good one, but superannuated. That, however, did not
interfere with its usefulness as a dwelling. We could get it--the doctor
had seen the owner--for a small sum per annum, and here was positively
no end to its capabilities.

We sat up until twenty minutes past two, talking about that house. We
ceased to call it a boat at about a quarter of eleven.

The next day I “took” the boat and paid a month's rent in advance. Three
days afterward we moved into it.

We had not much to move, which was a comfort, looking at it from one
point of view. A carpenter had put up two partitions in it which made
three rooms--a kitchen, a dining-room and a very long bedroom, which
was to be cut up into a parlor, study, spare-room, etc., as soon as
circumstances should allow, or my salary should be raised. Originally,
all the doors and windows were in the roof, so to speak, but our
landlord allowed us to make as many windows to the side of the boat
as we pleased, provided we gave him the wood we cut out. It saved him
trouble, he said, but I did not understand him at the time. Accordingly,
the carpenter made several windows for us, and put in sashes, which
opened on hinges like the hasp of a trunk. Our furniture did not amount
to much, at first. The very thought of living in this independent,
romantic way was so delightful, Euphemia said, that furniture seemed a
mere secondary matter.

We were obliged indeed to give up the idea of following the plan
detailed in our book, because we hadn't the sum upon which the
furnishing of a small house was therein based.

“And if we haven't the money,” remarked Euphemia, “it would be of no
earthly use to look at the book. It would only make us doubt our own
calculations. You might as well try to make brick without mortar, as the
children of Israel did.”

“I could do that myself, my dear,” said I, “but we won't discuss that
subject now. We will buy just what we absolutely need, and then work up
from that.”

Acting on this plan, we bought first a small stove, because Euphemia
said that we could sleep on the floor, if it were necessary, but we
couldn't make a fire on the floor--at least not often. Then we got
a table and two chairs. The next thing we purchased was some hanging
shelves for our books, and Euphemia suddenly remembered the kitchen
things. These, which were few, with some crockery, nearly brought us to
the end of our resources, but we had enough for a big easy-chair which
Euphemia was determined I should have, because I really needed it when
I came home at night, tired with my long day's work at the office. I had
always been used to an easy-chair, and it was one of her most delightful
dreams to see me in a real nice one, comfortably smoking my pipe in my
own house, after eating my own delicious little supper in company with
my own dear wife. We selected the chair, and then we were about to order
the things sent out to our future home, when I happened to think that we
had no bed. I called Euphemia's attention to the fact.

She was thunderstruck.

“I never thought of that,” she said. “We shall have to give up the
stove.”

“Not at all,” said I, “we can't do that. We must give up the
easy-chair.”

“Oh, that would be too bad,” said she. “The house would seem like
nothing to me without the chair!”

“But we must do without it, my dear,” said I, “at least for a while. I
can sit out on deck and smoke of an evening, you know.”

“Yes,” said Euphemia. “You can sit on the bulwarks and I can sit by you.
That will do very well. I'm sure I'm glad the boat has bulwarks.”

So we resigned the easy-chair and bought a bedstead and some very plain
bedding. The bedstead was what is sometimes called a “scissors-bed.”
 We could shut it up when we did not want to sleep in it, and stand it
against the wall.

When we packed up our trunks and left the boarding-house Euphemia fairly
skipped with joy.

We went down to Ginx's in the first boat, having arranged that our
furniture should be sent to us in the afternoon. We wanted to be there
to receive it. The trip was just wildly delirious. The air was charming.
The sun was bright, and I had a whole holiday. When we reached Ginx's we
found that the best way to get our trunks and ourselves to our house was
to take a carriage, and so we took one. I told the driver to drive along
the river road and I would tell him where to stop.

When we reached our boat, and had alighted, I said to the driver:

“You can just put our trunks inside, anywhere.”

The man looked at the trunks and then looked at the boat. Afterward he
looked at me.

“That boat ain't goin' anywhere,” said he.

“I should think not,” said Euphemia. “We shouldn't want to live in it,
if it were.”

“You are going to live in it?” said the man.

“Yes,” said Euphemia.

“Oh!” said the man, and he took our trunks on board, without another
word.

It was not very easy for him to get the trunks into our new home.
In fact it was not easy for us to get there ourselves. There was a
gang-plank, with a rail on one side of it, which inclined from the shore
to the deck of the boat at an angle of forty-five degrees, and when the
man had staggered up this plank with the trunks (Euphemia said I ought
to have helped him, but I really thought that it would be better for one
person to fall off the plank than for two to go over together), and
we had paid him, and he had driven away in a speechless condition, we
scrambled up and stood upon the threshold, or, rather, the after-deck of
our home.

It was a proud moment. Euphemia glanced around, her eyes full of happy
tears, and then she took my arm and we went down stairs--at least we
tried to go down in that fashion, but soon found it necessary to go one
at a time. We wandered over the whole extent of our mansion and found
that our carpenter had done his work better than the woman whom we had
engaged to scrub and clean the house. Something akin to despair must
have seized upon her, for Euphemia declared that the floors looked
dirtier than on the occasion of her first visit, when we rented the
boat.

But that didn't discourage us. We felt sure that we should get it clean
in time.

Early in the afternoon our furniture arrived, together with the other
things we had bought, and the men who brought them over from the
steamboat landing had the brightest, merriest faces I ever noticed among
that class of people. Euphemia said it was an excellent omen to
have such cheerful fellows come to us on the very first day of our
housekeeping.

Then we went to work. I put up the stove, which was not much trouble,
as there was a place all ready in the deck for the stove-pipe to be run
through. Euphemia was somewhat surprised at the absence of a chimney,
but I assured her that boats were very seldom built with chimneys. My
dear little wife bustled about and arranged the pots and kettles on
nails that I drove into the kitchen walls. Then she made the bed in the
bed-room and I hung up a looking-glass and a few little pictures that we
had brought in our trunks.

Before four o'clock our house was in order. Then we began to be very
hungry.

“My dear,” said Euphemia, “we ought to have thought to bring something
to cook.”

“That is very true,” said I, “but I think perhaps we had better walk
up to Ginx's and get our supper to-night. You see we are so tired and
hungry.”

“What!” cried Euphemia, “go to a hotel the very first day? I think it
would be dreadful! Why, I have been looking forward to this first meal
with the greatest delight. You can go up to the little store by the
hotel and buy some things and I will cook them, and we will have our
first dear little meal here all alone by ourselves, at our own table and
in our own house.”

So this was determined upon and, after a hasty counting of the fund I
had reserved for moving and kindred expenses, and which had been sorely
depleted during the day, I set out, and in about an hour returned with
my first marketing.

I made a fire, using a lot of chips and blocks the carpenter had left,
and Euphemia cooked the supper, and we ate it from our little table,
with two large towels for a table-cloth.

It was the most delightful meal I ever ate!

And, when we had finished, Euphemia washed the dishes (the thoughtful
creature had put some water on the stove to heat for the purpose,
while we were at supper) and then we went on deck, or on the piazza, as
Euphemia thought we had better call it, and there we had our smoke. I
say WE, for Euphemia always helps me to smoke by sitting by me, and she
seems to enjoy it as much as I do.

And when the shades of evening began to gather around us, I hauled in
the gang-plank (just like a delightful old draw-bridge, Euphemia said,
although I hope for the sake of our ancestors that draw-bridges were
easier to haul in) and went to bed.

It is lucky we were tired and wanted to go to bed early, for we had
forgotten all about lamps or candles.

For the next week we were two busy and happy people. I rose about
half-past five and made the fire,--we found so much wood on the shore,
that I thought I should not have to add fuel to my expenses,--and
Euphemia cooked the breakfast. I then went to a well belonging to a
cottage near by where we had arranged for water-privileges, and filled
two buckets with delicious water and carried them home for Euphemia's
use through the day. Then I hurried off to catch the train, for, as
there was a station near Ginx's, I ceased to patronize the steamboat,
the hours of which were not convenient. After a day of work and
pleasurable anticipation at the office, I hastened back to my home,
generally laden with a basket of provisions and various household
necessities. Milk was brought to us daily from the above-mentioned
cottage by a little toddler who seemed just able to carry the small tin
bucket which held a lacteal pint. If the urchin had been the child of
rich parents, as Euphemia sometimes observed, he would have been in his
nurse's arms--but being poor, he was scarcely weaned before he began to
carry milk around to other people.

After I reached home came supper and the delightful evening hours,
when over my pipe (I had given up cigars, as being too expensive and
inappropriate, and had taken to a tall pipe and canaster tobacco) we
talked and planned, and told each other our day's experience.

One of our earliest subjects of discussion was the name of our
homestead. Euphemia insisted that it should have a name. I was quite
willing, but we found it no easy matter to select an appropriate title.
I proposed a number of appellations intended to suggest the character of
our home. Among these were: “Safe Ashore,” “Firmly Grounded,” and some
other names of that style, but Euphemia did not fancy any of them. She
wanted a suitable name, of course, she said, but it must be something
that would SOUND like a house and BE like a boat.

“Partitionville,” she objected to, and “Gangplank Terrace,” did not suit
her because it suggested convicts going out to work, which naturally was
unpleasant.

At last, after days of talk and cogitation, we named our house “Rudder
Grange.”

To be sure, it wasn't exactly a grange, but then it had such an enormous
rudder that the justice of that part of the title seemed to over-balance
any little inaccuracy in the other portion.

But we did not spend all our spare time in talking. An hour or two,
every evening was occupied in what we called “fixing the house,” and
gradually the inside of our abode began to look like a conventional
dwelling. We put matting on the floors and cheap but very pretty paper
on the walls. We added now a couple of chairs, and now a table or
something for the kitchen. Frequently, especially of a Sunday, we had
company, and our guests were always charmed with Euphemia's cunning
little meals. The dear girl loved good eating so much that she could
scarcely fail to be a good cook.

We worked hard, and were very happy. And thus the weeks passed on.



CHAPTER II. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BOARDER.


In this delightful way of living, only one thing troubled us. We didn't
save any money. There were so many little things that we wanted, and so
many little things that were so cheap, that I spent pretty much all
I made, and that was far from the philosophical plan of living that I
wished to follow.

We talked this matter over a great deal after we had lived in our new
home for about a month, and we came at last to the conclusion that we
would take a boarder.

We had no trouble in getting a boarder, for we had a friend, a young man
who was engaged in the flour business, who was very anxious to come
and live with us. He had been to see us two or three times, and had
expressed himself charmed with our household arrangements.

So we made terms with him. The carpenter partitioned off another room,
and our boarder brought his trunk and a large red velvet arm-chair, and
took up his abode at “Rudder Grange.”

We liked our boarder very much, but he had some peculiarities. I suppose
everybody has them. Among other things, he was very fond of telling us
what we ought to do. He suggested more improvements in the first three
days of his sojourn with us than I had thought of since we commenced
housekeeping. And what made the matter worse, his suggestions were
generally very good ones. Had it been otherwise I might have borne his
remarks more complacently, but to be continually told what you ought to
do, and to know that you ought to do it, is extremely annoying.

He was very anxious that I should take off the rudder, which was
certainly useless to a boat situated as ours was, and make an
ironing-table of it. I persisted that the laws of symmetrical propriety
required that the rudder should remain where it was--that the very name
of our home would be interfered with by its removal, but he insisted
that “Ironing-table Grange” would be just as good a name, and that
symmetrical propriety in such a case did not amount to a row of pins.

The result was, that we did have the ironing-table, and that Euphemia
was very much pleased with it. A great many other improvements were
projected and carried out by him, and I was very much worried. He made
a flower-garden for Euphemia on the extreme forward-deck, and having
borrowed a wheelbarrow, he wheeled dozens of loads of arable dirt up
our gang-plank and dumped them out on the deck. When he had covered
the garden with a suitable depth of earth, he smoothed it off and then
planted flower-seeds. It was rather late in the season, but most of
them came up. I was pleased with the garden, but sorry I had not made it
myself.

One afternoon I got away from the office considerably earlier than
usual, and I hurried home to enjoy the short period of daylight that I
should have before supper. It had been raining the day before, and as
the bottom of our garden leaked so that earthy water trickled down at
one end of our bed-room, I intended to devote a short time to stuffing
up the cracks in the ceiling or bottom of the deck--whichever seems the
most appropriate.

But when I reached a bend in the river road, whence I always had the
earliest view of my establishment, I did not have that view. I
hurried on. The nearer I approached the place where I lived, the more
horror-stricken I became. There was no mistaking the fact.

The boat was not there!

In an instant the truth flashed upon me.

The water was very high--the rain had swollen the river--my house had
floated away!

It was Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoons our boarder came home early.

I clapped my hat tightly on my head and ground my teeth.

“Confound that boarder!” I thought. “He has been fooling with the
anchor. He always said it was of no use, and taking advantage of my
absence, he has hauled it up, and has floated away, and has gone--gone
with my wife and my home!”

Euphemia and “Rudder Grange” had gone off together--where I knew
not,--and with them that horrible suggester!

I ran wildly along the bank. I called aloud, I shouted and hailed each
passing craft--of which there were only two--but their crews must have
been very inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did not hear
me, for they paid no attention to my cries.

I met a fellow with an axe on his shoulder. I shouted to him before I
reached him:

“Hello! did you see a boat--a house, I mean,--floating up the river?”

“A boat-house?” asked the man.

“No, a house-boat,” I gasped.

“Didn't see nuthin' like it,” said the man, and he passed on, to his
wife and home, no doubt. But me! Oh, where was my wife and my home?

I met several people, but none of them had seen a fugitive canal-boat.

How many thoughts came into my brain as I ran along that river road! If
that wretched boarder had not taken the rudder for an ironing table he
might have steered in shore! Again and again I confounded--as far as
mental ejaculations could do it--his suggestions.

I was rapidly becoming frantic when I met a person who hailed me.

“Hello!” he said, “are you after a canal-boat adrift?”

“Yes,” I panted.

“I thought you was,” he said. “You looked that way. Well, I can tell you
where she is. She's stuck fast in the reeds at the lower end o' Peter's
Pint.”

“Where's that?” said I.

“Oh, it's about a mile furder up. I seed her a-driftin' up with the
tide--big flood tide, to-day--and I thought I'd see somebody after her,
afore long. Anything aboard?”

Anything!

I could not answer the man. Anything, indeed! I hurried on up the river
without a word. Was the boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. I
scarcely dared to think at all.

The man called after me and I stopped. I could but stop, no matter what
I might hear.

“Hello, mister,” he said, “got any tobacco?”

I walked up to him. I took hold of him by the lapel of his coat. It was
a dirty lapel, as I remember even now, but I didn't mind that.

“Look here,” said I. “Tell me the truth, I can bear it. Was that vessel
wrecked?”

The man looked at me a little queerly. I could not exactly interpret his
expression.

“You're sure you kin bear it?” said he.

“Yes,” said I, my hand trembling as I held his coat.

“Well, then,” said he, “it's mor'n I kin,” and he jerked his coat out of
my hand, and sprang away. When he reached the other side of the road, he
turned and shouted at me, as though I had been deaf.

“Do you know what I think?” he yelled. “I think you're a darned
lunatic,” and with that he went his way.

I hastened on to Peter's Point. Long before I reached it, I saw the
boat.

It was apparently deserted. But still I pressed on. I must know the
worst. When I reached the Point, I found that the boat had run aground,
with her head in among the long reeds and mud, and the rest of her hull
lying at an angle from the shore.

There was consequently no way for me to get on board, but to wade
through the mud and reeds to her bow, and then climb up as well as I
could.

This I did, but it was not easy to do. Twice I sank above my knees
in mud and water, and had it not been for reeds, masses of which I
frequently clutched when I thought I was going over, I believe I should
have fallen down and come to my death in that horrible marsh. When
I reached the boat, I stood up to my hips in water and saw no way of
climbing up. The gang-plank had undoubtedly floated away, and if it had
not, it would have been of no use to me in my position.

But I was desperate. I clasped the post that they put in the bow of
canal-boats; I stuck my toes and my finger-nails in the cracks between
the boards--how glad I was that the boat was an old one and had
cracks!--and so, painfully and slowly, slipping part way down once or
twice, and besliming myself from chin to foot, I climbed up that post
and scrambled upon deck. In an instant, I reached the top of the stairs,
and in another instant I rushed below.

There sat my wife and our boarder, one on each side of the dining-room
table, complacently playing checkers!

My sudden entrance startled them. My appearance startled them still
more.

Euphemia sprang to her feet and tottered toward me.

“Mercy!” she exclaimed; “has anything happened?”

“Happened!” I gasped.

“Look here,” cried the boarder, clutching me by the arm, “what a
condition you're in. Did you fall in?”

“Fall in!” said I.

Euphemia and the boarder looked at each other. I looked at them. Then I
opened my mouth in earnest.

“I suppose you don't know,” I yelled, “that you have drifted away!”

“By George!” cried the boarder, and in two bounds he was on deck.

Dirty as I was, Euphemia fell into my arms. I told her all. She hadn't
known a bit of it!

The boat had so gently drifted off, and had so gently grounded among
the reeds, that the voyage had never so much as disturbed their games of
checkers.

“He plays such a splendid game,” Euphemia sobbed, “and just as you came,
I thought I was going to beat him. I had two kings and two pieces on the
next to last row, and you are nearly drowned. You'll get your death of
cold--and--and he had only one king.”

She led me away and I undressed and washed myself and put on my Sunday
clothes.

When I reappeared I went out on deck with Euphemia. The boarder was
there, standing by the petunia bed. His arms were folded and he was
thinking profoundly. As we approached, he turned toward us.

“You were right about that anchor,” he said, “I should not have hauled
it in; but it was such a little anchor that I thought it would be of
more use on board as a garden hoe.”

“A very little anchor will sometimes do very well,” said I, cuttingly,
“when it is hooked around a tree.”

“Yes, there is something in that,” said he.

It was now growing late, and as our agitation subsided we began to be
hungry. Fortunately, we had everything necessary on board, and, as it
really didn't make any difference in our household economy, where we
happened to be located, we had supper quite as usual. In fact, the
kettle had been put on to boil during the checker-playing.

After supper, we went on deck to smoke, as was our custom, but there was
a certain coolness between me and our boarder.

Early the next morning I arose and went upstairs to consider what had
better be done, when I saw the boarder standing on shore, near by.

“Hello!” he cried, “the tide's down and I got ashore without any
trouble. You stay where you are. I've hired a couple of mules to tow the
boat back. They'll be here when the tide rises. And, hello! I've found
the gang-plank. It floated ashore about a quarter of a mile below here.”

In the course of the afternoon the mules and two men with a long rope
appeared, and we were then towed back to where we belonged.

And we are there yet. Our boarder remains with us, as the weather is
still fine, and the coolness between us is gradually diminishing. But
the boat is moored at both ends, and twice a day I look to see if the
ropes are all right.

The petunias are growing beautifully, but the geraniums do not seem to
flourish. Perhaps there is not a sufficient depth of earth for them.
Several times our boarder has appeared to be on the point of suggesting
something in regard to them, but, for some reason or other, he says
nothing.



CHAPTER III. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF GIRL.


One afternoon, as I was hurrying down Broadway to catch the five o'clock
train, I met Waterford. He is an old friend of mine, and I used to like
him pretty well.

“Hello!” said he, “where are you going?”

“Home,” I answered.

“Is that so?” said he. “I didn't know you had one.”

I was a little nettled at this, and so I said, somewhat brusquely
perhaps:

“But you must have known I lived somewhere.”

“Oh, yes! But I thought you boarded,” said he. “I had no idea that you
had a home.”

“But I have one, and a very pleasant home, too. You must excuse me for
not stopping longer, as I must catch my train.”

“Oh! I'll walk along with you,” said Waterford, and so we went down the
street together.

“Where is your little house?” he asked.

Why in the world he thought it was a little house I could not at the
time imagine, unless he supposed that two people would not require
a large one. But I know, now, that he lived in a very little house
himself.

But it was of no use getting angry with Waterford, especially as I saw
he intended walking all the way down to the ferry with me, so I told him
I didn't live in any house at all.

“Why, where DO you live?” he exclaimed, stopping short.

“I live in a boat,” said I.

“A boat! A sort of 'Rob Roy' arrangement, I suppose. Well, I would not
have thought that of you. And your wife, I suppose, has gone home to her
people?”

“She has done nothing of the kind,” I answered. “She lives with me, and
she likes it very much. We are extremely comfortable, and our boat is
not a canoe, or any such nonsensical affair. It is a large, commodious
canal-boat.”

Waterford turned around and looked at me.

“Are you a deck-hand?” he asked.

“Deck-grandmother!” I exclaimed.

“Well, you needn't get mad about it,” he said. “I didn't mean to
hurt your feelings; but I couldn't see what else you could be on a
canal-boat. I don't suppose, for instance, that you're captain.”

“But I am,” said I.

“Look here!” said Waterford; “this is coming it rather strong, isn't
it?”

As I saw he was getting angry, I told him all about it,--told him how we
had hired a stranded canal-boat and had fitted it up as a house, and how
we lived so cosily in it, and had called it “Rudder Grange,” and how we
had taken a boarder.

“Well!” said he, “this is certainly surprising. I'm coming out to see
you some day. It will be better than going to Barnum's.”

I told him--it is the way of society--that we would be glad to see him,
and we parted. Waterford never did come to see us, and I merely mention
this incident to show how some of our friends talked about Rudder
Grange, when they first heard that we lived there.

After dinner that evening, when I went up on deck with Euphemia to have
my smoke, we saw the boarder sitting on the bulwarks near the garden,
with his legs dangling down outside.

“Look here!” said he.

I looked, but there was nothing unusual to see.

“What is it?” I asked.

He turned around and seeing Euphemia, said:

“Nothing.”

It would be a very stupid person who could not take such a hint as that,
and so, after a walk around the garden, Euphemia took occasion to go
below to look at the kitchen fire.

As soon as she had gone, the boarder turned to me and said:

“I'll tell you what it is. She's working herself sick.”

“Sick?” said I. “Nonsense!”

“No nonsense about it,” he replied.

The truth was, that the boarder was right and I was wrong. We had spent
several months at Rudder Grange, and during this time Euphemia had
been working very hard, and she really did begin to look pale and
thin. Indeed, it would be very wearying for any woman of culture and
refinement, unused to house-work, to cook and care for two men, and to
do all the work of a canal-boat besides.

But I saw Euphemia so constantly, and thought so much of her, and had
her image so continually in my heart, that I did not notice this until
our boarder now called my attention to it. I was sorry that he had to do
it.

“If I were in your place,” said he, “I would get her a servant.”

“If you were in my place,” I replied, somewhat cuttingly, “you would
probably suggest a lot of little things which would make everything very
easy for her.”

“I'd try to,” he answered, without getting in the least angry.

Although I felt annoyed that he had suggested it, still I made up my
mind that Euphemia must have a servant.

She agreed quite readily when I proposed the plan, and she urged me
to go and see the carpenter that very day, and get him to come and
partition off a little room for the girl.

It was some time, of course, before the room was made (for who ever
heard of a carpenter coming at the very time he was wanted?) and, when
it was finished, Euphemia occupied all her spare moments in getting it
in nice order for the servant when she should come. I thought she was
taking too much trouble, but she had her own ideas about such things.

“If a girl is lodged like a pig, you must expect her to behave like a
pig, and I don't want that kind.”

So she put up pretty curtains at the girl's window, and with a box that
she stood on end, and some old muslin and a lot of tacks, she made a
toilet-table so neat and convenient that I thought she ought to take it
into our room and give the servant our wash-stand.

But all this time we had no girl, and as I had made up my mind about the
matter, I naturally grew impatient, and at last I determined to go and
get a girl myself.

So, one day at lunch-time, I went to an intelligence office in the city.
There I found a large room on the second floor, and some ladies, and one
or two men, sitting about, and a small room, back of it, crowded with
girls from eighteen to sixty-eight years old. There were also girls upon
the stairs, and girls in the hall below, besides some girls standing on
the sidewalk before the door.

When I made known my business and had paid my fee, one of the several
proprietors who were wandering about the front room went into the
back apartment and soon returned with a tall Irishwoman with a bony
weather-beaten face and a large weather-beaten shawl. This woman was
told to take a chair by my side. Down sat the huge creature and stared
at me. I did not feel very easy under her scrutinizing gaze, but I bore
it as best I could, and immediately began to ask her all the appropriate
questions that I could think of. Some she answered satisfactorily, and
some she didn't answer at all; but as soon as I made a pause, she began
to put questions herself.

“How many servants do you kape?” she asked.

I answered that we intended to get along with one, and if she understood
her business, I thought she would find her work very easy, and the place
a good one.

She turned sharp upon me and said:

“Have ye stationary wash-tubs?”

I hesitated. I knew our wash-tubs were not stationary, for I had helped
to carry them about. But they might be screwed fast and made stationary
if that was an important object. But, before making this answer,
I thought of the great conveniences for washing presented by our
residence, surrounded as it was, at high tide, by water.

“Why, we live in a stationary wash-tub,” I said, smiling.

The woman looked at me steadfastly for a minute, and then she rose
to her feet. Then she called out, as if she were crying fish or
strawberries:

“Mrs. Blaine!”

The female keeper of the intelligence office, and the male keeper, and
a thin clerk, and all the women in the back room, and all the patrons in
the front room, jumped up and gathered around us.

Astonished and somewhat disconcerted, I rose to my feet and confronted
the tall Irishwoman, and stood smiling in an uncertain sort of a way, as
if it were all very funny; but I couldn't see the point. I think I must
have impressed the people with the idea that I wished I hadn't come.

“He says,” exclaimed the woman, as if some other huckster were crying
fish on the other side of the street--“he says he lives in a wash-toob.”

“He's crazy!” ejaculated Mrs. Blaine, with an air that indicated
“policeman” as plainly as if she had put her thought into words.

A low murmur ran through the crowd of women, while the thin clerk edged
toward the door.

I saw there was no time to lose. I stepped back a little from the tall
savage, who was breathing like a hot-air engine in front of me, and made
my explanations to the company. I told the tale of “Rudder Grange,” and
showed them how it was like to a stationary wash-tub--at certain stages
of the tide.

I was listened to with great attention. When I had finished, the tall
woman turned around and faced the assemblage.

“An' he wants a cook to make soup! In a canal-boat!” said she, and off
she marched into the back-room, followed closely by all the other women.

“I don't think we have any one here who would suit you,” said Mrs.
Blaine.

I didn't think so either. What on earth would Euphemia have done with
that volcanic Irishwoman in her little kitchen! I took up my hat and
bade Mrs. Blaine good morning.

“Good morning,” said she, with a distressing smile.

She had one of those mouths that look exactly like a gash in the face.

I went home without a girl. In a day or two Euphemia came to town and
got one. Apparently she got her without any trouble, but I am not sure.

She went to a “Home”--Saint Somebody's Home--a place where they keep
orphans to let, so to speak. Here Euphemia selected a light-haired,
medium-sized orphan, and brought her home.

The girl's name was Pomona. Whether or not her parents gave her this
name is doubtful. At any rate, she did not seem quite decided in her
mind about it herself, for she had not been with us more than two weeks
before she expressed a desire to be called Clare. This longing of her
heart, however, was denied her. So Euphemia, who was always correct,
called her Pomona. I did the same whenever I could think not to say
Bologna--which seemed to come very pat for some reason or other.

As for the boarder, he generally called her Altoona, connecting her in
some way with the process of stopping for refreshments, in which she was
an adept.

She was an earnest, hearty girl. She was always in a good humor, and
when I asked her to do anything, she assented in a bright, cheerful way,
and in a loud tone full of good-fellowship, as though she would say:

“Certainly, my high old cock! To be sure I will. Don't worry about
it--give your mind no more uneasiness on that subject. I'll bring the
hot water.”

She did not know very much, but she was delighted to learn, and she was
very strong. Whatever Euphemia told her to do, she did instantly with a
bang. What pleased her better than anything else was to run up and
down the gang-plank, carrying buckets of water to water the garden.
She delighted in out-door work, and sometimes dug so vigorously in
our garden that she brought up pieces of the deck-planking with every
shovelful.

Our boarder took the greatest interest in her, and sometimes watched her
movements so intently that he let his pipe go out.

“What a whacking girl that would be to tread out grapes in the vineyards
of Italy! She'd make wine cheap,” he once remarked.

“Then I'm glad she isn't there,” said Euphemia, “for wine oughtn't to be
cheap.”

Euphemia was a thorough little temperance woman.

The one thing about Pomona that troubled me more than anything else was
her taste for literature. It was not literature to which I objected, but
her very peculiar taste. She would read in the kitchen every night after
she had washed the dishes, but if she had not read aloud, it would not
have made so much difference to me. But I am naturally very sensitive to
external impressions, and I do not like the company of people who, like
our girl, cannot read without pronouncing in a measured and distinct
voice every word of what they are reading. And when the matter thus read
appeals to one's every sentiment of aversion, and there is no way of
escaping it, the case is hard indeed.

From the first, I felt inclined to order Pomona, if she could not attain
the power of silent perusal, to cease from reading altogether; but
Euphemia would not hear to this.

“Poor thing!” said she; “it would be cruel to take from her her only
recreation. And she says she can't read any other way. You needn't
listen if you don't want to.”

That was all very well in an abstract point of view; but the fact was,
that in practice, the more I didn't want to listen, the more I heard.

As the evenings were often cool, we sat in our dining-room, and the
partition between this room and the kitchen seemed to have no influence
whatever in arresting sound. So that when I was trying to read or to
reflect, it was by no means exhilarating to my mind to hear from the
next room that:

“The la dy ce sel i a now si zed the weep on and all though the boor ly
vil ly an re tain ed his vy gor ous hold she drew the blade through his
fin gers and hoorl ed it far be hind her dryp ping with jore.”

This sort of thing, kept up for an hour or so at a time, used to drive
me nearly wild. But Euphemia did not mind it. I believe that she had
so delicate a sense of what was proper, that she did not hear Pomona's
private readings.

On one occasion, even Euphemia's influence could scarcely restrain me
from violent interference.

It was our boarder's night out (when he was detained in town by his
business), and Pomona was sitting up to let him in. This was necessary,
for our front-door (or main-hatchway) had no night-latch, but was
fastened by means of a bolt. Euphemia and I used to sit up for him, but
that was earlier in the season, when it was pleasant to be out on
deck until quite a late hour. But Pomona never objected to sitting (or
getting) up late, and so we allowed this weekly duty to devolve on her.

On this particular night I was very tired and sleepy, and soon after I
got into bed I dropped into a delightful slumber. But it was not long
before I was awakened by the fact that:

“Sa rah did not fl inch but gras ped the heat ed i ron in her un in jur
ed hand and when the ra bid an i mal a proach ed she thr ust the lur id
po ker in his--”

“My conscience!” said I to Euphemia, “can't that girl be stopped?”

“You wouldn't have her sit there and do nothing, would you?” said she.

“No; but she needn't read out that way.”

“She can't read any other way,” said Euphemia, drowsily.

“Yell af ter yell res oun ded as he wil dly spr rang--”

“I can't stand that, and I won't,” said I. “Why don't she go into the
kitchen?--the dining-room's no place for her.”

“She must not sit there,” said Euphemia. “There's a window-pane out.
Can't you cover up your head?”

“I shall not be able to breathe if I do; but I suppose that's no
matter,” I replied.

The reading continued.

“Ha, ha! Lord Mar mont thun der ed thou too shalt suf fer all that this
poor--”

I sprang out of bed.

Euphemia thought I was going for my pistol, and she gave one bound and
stuck her head out of the door.

“Pomona, fly!” she cried.

“Yes, sma'am,” said Pomona; and she got up and flew--not very fast, I
imagine. Where she flew to I don't know, but she took the lamp with her,
and I could hear distant syllables of agony and blood, until the boarder
came home and Pomona went to bed.

I think that this made an impression upon Euphemia, for, although she
did not speak to me upon the subject (or any other) that night, the next
time I heard Pomona reading, the words ran somewhat thus:

“The as ton ish ing che ap ness of land is ac count ed for by the want
of home mar kets, of good ro ads and che ap me ans of trans por ta ti on
in ma ny sec ti ons of the State.”



CHAPTER IV. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BURGLAR.


I have spoken of my pistol. During the early part of our residence at
Rudder Grange I never thought of such a thing as owning a pistol.

But it was different now. I kept a Colt's revolver loaded in the bureau
drawer in our bedroom.

The cause of this change was burglars. Not that any of these unpleasant
persons had visited us, but we much feared they would. Several houses in
the vicinity had been entered during the past month, and we could never
tell when our turn would come.

To be sure, our boarder suggested that if we were to anchor out a little
further at night, no burglar would risk catching his death of cold by
swimming out to us; but Euphemia having replied that it would be rather
difficult to move a canal-boat every night without paddle-wheels, or
sails, or mules, especially if it were aground, this plan was considered
to be effectually disposed of.

So we made up our minds that we must fasten up everything very securely,
and I bought a pistol and two burglar-alarms. One of these I affixed to
the most exposed window, and the other to the door which opened on the
deck. These alarms were very simple affairs, but they were good enough.
When they were properly attached to a window or door, and it was opened,
a little gong sounded like a violently deranged clock, striking all the
hours of the day at once.

The window did not trouble us much, but it was rather irksome to have
to make the attachment to the door every night and to take it off every
morning. However, as Euphemia said, it was better to take a little
trouble than to have the house full of burglars, which was true enough.

We made all the necessary arrangements in case burglars should make an
inroad upon us. At the first sound of the alarm, Euphemia and the girl
were to lie flat on the floor or get under their beds. Then the boarder
and I were to stand up, back to back, each with pistol in hand, and fire
away, revolving on a common centre the while. In this way, by aiming
horizontally at about four feet from the floor, we could rake the
premises, and run no risk of shooting each other or the women of the
family.

To be sure, there were some slight objections to this plan. The
boarder's room was at some distance from ours, and he would probably not
hear the alarm, and the burglars might not be willing to wait while
I went forward and roused him up, and brought him to our part of the
house. But this was a minor difficulty. I had no doubt but that, if it
should be necessary, I could manage to get our boarder into position in
plenty of time.

It was not very long before there was an opportunity of testing the
plan.

About twelve o'clock one night one of the alarms (that on the kitchen
window) went off with a whirr and a wild succession of clangs. For a
moment I thought the morning train had arrived, and then I woke up.
Euphemia was already under the bed.

I hurried on a few clothes, and then I tried to find the bureau in the
dark. This was not easy, as I lost my bearings entirely. But I found it
at last, got the top drawer open and took out my pistol. Then I slipped
out of the room, hurried up the stairs, opened the door (setting off the
alarm there, by the way), and ran along the deck (there was a cold night
wind), and hastily descended the steep steps that led into the boarder's
room. The door that was at the bottom of the steps was not fastened,
and, as I opened it, a little stray moonlight illumed the room. I
hastily stepped to the bed and shook the boarder by the shoulder. He
kept HIS pistol under his pillow.

In an instant he was on his feet, his hand grasped my throat, and
the cold muzzle of his Derringer pistol was at my forehead. It was an
awfully big muzzle, like the mouth of a bottle.

I don't know when I lived so long as during the first minute that he
held me thus.

“Rascal!” he said. “Do as much as breathe, and I'll pull the trigger.”

I didn't breathe.

I had an accident insurance on my life. Would it hold good in a case
like this? Or would Euphemia have to go back to her father?

He pushed me back into the little patch of moonlight.

“Oh! is it you?” he said, relaxing his grasp. “What do you want? A
mustard plaster?”

He had a package of patent plasters in his room. You took one and dipped
it in hot water, and it was all ready.

“No,” said I, gasping a little. “Burglars.”

“Oh!” he said, and he put down his pistol and put on his clothes.

“Come along,” he said, and away we went over the deck.

When we reached the stairs all was dark and quiet below.

It was a matter of hesitancy as to going down.

I started to go down first, but the boarder held me back.

“Let me go down,” he said.

“No,” said I, “my wife is there.”

“That's the very reason you should not go,” he said. “She is safe enough
yet, and they would fire only at a man. It would be a bad job for her if
you were killed. I'll go down.”

So he went down, slowly and cautiously, his pistol in one hand, and his
life in the other, as it were.

When he reached the bottom of the steps I changed my mind. I could not
remain above while the burglar and Euphemia were below, so I followed.

The boarder was standing in the middle of the dining-room, into which
the stairs led. I could not see him, but I put my hand against him as I
was feeling my way across the floor.

I whispered to him:

“Shall we put our backs together and revolve and fire?”

“No,” he whispered back, “not now; he may be on a shelf by this time, or
under a table. Let's look him up.”

I confess that I was not very anxious to look him up, but I followed the
boarder, as he slowly made his way toward the kitchen door. As we opened
the door we instinctively stopped.

The window was open, and by the light of the moon that shone in, we saw
the rascal standing on a chair, leaning out of the window, evidently
just ready to escape. Fortunately, we were unheard.

“Let's pull him in,” whispered the boarder.

“No,” I whispered in reply. “We don't want him in. Let's hoist him out.”

“All right,” returned the boarder.

We laid our pistols on the floor, and softly approached the window.
Being barefooted, out steps were noiseless.

“Hoist when I count three,” breathed the boarder into my ear.

We reached the chair. Each of us took hold of two of its legs.

“One--two--three!” said the boarder, and together we gave a tremendous
lift and shot the wretch out of the window.

The tide was high, and there was a good deal of water around the boat.
We heard a rousing splash outside.

Now there was no need of silence.

“Shall we run on deck and shoot him as he swims?” I cried.

“No,” said the boarder, “we'll get the boat-hook, and jab him if he
tries to climb up.”

We rushed on deck. I seized the boat-hook and looked over the side. But
I saw no one.

“He's gone to the bottom!” I exclaimed.

“He didn't go very far then,” said the boarder, “for it's not more than
two feet deep there.”

Just then our attention was attracted by a voice from the shore.

“Will you please let down the gang-plank?” We looked ashore, and there
stood Pomona, dripping from every pore.

We spoke no words, but lowered the gangplank.

She came aboard.

“Good night!” said the boarder, and he went to bed.

“Pomona!” said I, “what have you been doing?”

“I was a lookin' at the moon, sir, when pop! the chair bounced, and out
I went.”

“You shouldn't do that,” I said, sternly.

“Some day you'll be drowned. Take off your wet things and go to bed.”

“Yes, sma'am--sir, I mean,” said she, as she went down-stairs.

When I reached my room I lighted the lamp, and found Euphemia still
under the bed.

“Is it all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “There was no burglar. Pomona fell out of the
window.”

“Did you get her a plaster?” asked Euphemia, drowsily.

“No, she did not need one. She's all right now. Were you worried about
me, dear?”

“No, I trusted in you entirely, and I think I dozed a little under the
bed.”

In one minute she was asleep.

The boarder and I did not make this matter a subject of conversation
afterward, but Euphemia gave the girl a lecture on her careless ways,
and made her take several Dover's powders the next day.

An important fact in domestic economy was discovered about this time by
Euphemia and myself. Perhaps we were not the first to discover it, but
we certainly did find it out,--and this fact was, that housekeeping
costs money. At the end of every week we counted up our expenditures--it
was no trouble at all to count up our receipts--and every week the
result was more unsatisfactory.

“If we could only get rid of the disagreeable balance that has to
be taken along all the time, and which gets bigger and bigger like a
snow-ball, I think we would find the accounts more satisfactory,” said
Euphemia.

This was on a Saturday night. We always got our pencils and paper and
money at the end of the week.

“Yes,” said I, with an attempt to appear facetious and unconcerned, “but
it would be all well enough if we could take that snow-ball to the fire
and melt it down.”

“But there never is any fire where there are snow-balls,” said Euphemia.

“No,” said I, “and that's just the trouble.”

It was on the following Thursday, when I came home in the evening, that
Euphemia met me with a glowing face. It rather surprised me to see her
look so happy, for she had been very quiet and preoccupied for the first
part of the week. So much so, indeed, that I had thought of ordering
smaller roasts for a week or two, and taking her to a Thomas Concert
with the money saved. But this evening she looked as if she did not need
Thomas's orchestra.

“What makes you so bright, my dear?” said I, when I had greeted her.
“Has anything jolly happened?”

“No,” said she; “nothing yet, but I am going to make a fire to melt
snow-balls.”

Of course I was very anxious to know how she was going to do it, but she
would not tell me. It was a plan that she intended to keep to herself
until she saw how it worked. I did not press her, because she had so few
secrets, and I did not hear anything about this plan until it had been
carried out.

Her scheme was as follows: After thinking over our financial condition
and puzzling her brain to find out some way of bettering it, she
had come to the conclusion that she would make some money by her own
exertions, to help defray our household expenses. She never had made any
money, but that was no reason why she should not begin. It was too bad
that I should have to toil and toil and not make nearly enough money
after all. So she would go to work and earn something with her own
hands.

She had heard of an establishment in the city, where ladies of limited
means, or transiently impecunious, could, in a very quiet and private
way, get sewing to do. They could thus provide for their needs without
any one but the officers of the institution knowing anything about it.

So Euphemia went to this place, and she got some work. It was not a very
large bundle, but it was larger than she had been accustomed to carry,
and, what was perfectly dreadful, it was wrapped up in a newspaper!
When Euphemia told me the story, she said that this was too much for her
courage. She could not go on the cars, and perhaps meet people belonging
to our church, with a newspaper bundle under her arm.

But her genius for expedients saved her from this humiliation. She had
to purchase some sewing-cotton, and some other little things, and when
she had bought them, she handed her bundle to the woman behind the
counter, and asked her if she would not be so good as to have that
wrapped up with the other things. It was a good deal to ask, she knew,
and the woman smiled, for the articles she had bought would not make a
package as large as her hand. However, her request was complied with,
and she took away a very decent package, with the card of the store
stamped on the outside. I suppose that there are not more than half a
dozen people in this country who would refuse Euphemia anything that she
would be willing to ask for.

So she took the work home, and she labored faithfully at it for about
a week, She did not suppose it would take her so long; but she was not
used to such very plain sewing, and was much afraid that she would not
do it neatly enough. Besides this, she could only work on it in the
daytime--when I was away--and was, of course, interrupted a great
deal by her ordinary household duties, and the necessity of a careful
oversight of Pomona's somewhat erratic methods of doing her work.

But at last she finished the job and took it into the city. She did not
want to spend any more money on the trip than was absolutely necessary,
and so was very glad to find that she had a remnant of pocket-money
sufficient to pay her fare both ways.

When she reached the city, she walked up to the place where her work was
to be delivered, and found it much farther when she went on foot than it
had seemed to her riding in the street cars. She handed over her bundle
to the proper person, and, as it was soon examined and approved, she
received her pay therefor.

It amounted to sixty cents. She had made no bargain, but she was a
little astonished. However, she said nothing, but left the place without
asking for any more work. In fact she forgot all about it. She had an
idea that everything was all wrong, and that idea engrossed her mind
entirely. There was no mistake about the sum paid, for the lady clerk
had referred to the printed table of prices when she calculated the
amount due. But something was wrong, and, at the moment, Euphemia could
not tell what it was. She left the place, and started to walk back to
the ferry. But she was so tired and weak, and hungry--it was now an hour
or two past her regular luncheon time--that she thought she should faint
if she did not go somewhere and get some refreshments.

So, like a sensible little woman as she was, she went into a restaurant.
She sat down at a table, and a waiter came to her to see what she would
have. She was not accustomed to eating-houses, and perhaps this was
the first time that she had ever visited one alone. What she wanted
was something simple. So she ordered a cup of tea and some rolls, and a
piece of chicken. The meal was a very good one, and Euphemia enjoyed it.
When she had finished, she went up to the counter to settle. Her bill
was sixty cents. She paid the money that she had just received, and
walked down to the ferry--all in a daze, she said. When she got home she
thought it over, and then she cried.

After a while she dried her eyes, and when I came home she told me all
about it.

“I give it up,” she said. “I don't believe I can help you any.”

Poor little thing! I took her in my arms and comforted her, and before
bedtime I had convinced her that she was fully able to help me better
than any one else on earth, and that without puzzling her brains about
business, or wearing herself out by sewing for pay.

So we went on in our old way, and by keeping our attention on our weekly
balance, we prevented it from growing very rapidly.

We fell back on our philosophy (it was all the capital we had), and
became as calm and contented as circumstances allowed.



CHAPTER V. POMONA PRODUCES A PARTIAL REVOLUTION IN RUDDER GRANGE.


Euphemia began to take a great deal of comfort in her girl. Every
evening she had some new instance to relate of Pomona's inventive
abilities and aptness in adapting herself to the peculiarities of our
method of housekeeping.

“Only to think!” said she, one afternoon, “Pomona has just done another
VERY smart thing. You know what a trouble it has always been for us
to carry all our waste water upstairs, and throw it over the bulwarks.
Well, she has remedied all that. She has cut a nice little low window
in the side of the kitchen, and has made a shutter of the piece she cut
out, with leather hinges to it, and now she can just open this window,
throw the water out, shut it again, and there it is! I tell you she's
smart.”

“Yes; there is no doubt of that,” I said; “but I think that there is
danger of her taking more interest in such extraordinary and novel
duties than in the regular work of the house.”

“Now, don't discourage the girl, my dear,” she said, “for she is of the
greatest use to me, and I don't want you to be throwing cold water about
like some people.”

“Not even if I throw it out of Pomona's little door, I suppose.”

“No. Don't throw it at all. Encourage people. What would the world be
if everybody chilled our aspirations and extraordinary efforts? Like
Fulton's steamboat.”

“All right,” I said; “I'll not discourage her.”

It was now getting late in the season. It was quite too cool to sit out
on deck in the evening, and our garden began to look desolate.

Our boarder had wheeled up a lot of fresh earth, and had prepared a
large bed, in which he had planted turnips. They made an excellent fall
crop, he assured us.

From being simply cool it began to be rainy, and the weather grew
decidedly unpleasant. But our boarder bade us take courage. This was
probably the “equinoctial,” and when it was over there would be a
delightful Indian summer, and the turnips would grow nicely.

This sounded very well, but the wind blew up cold at night, and there
was a great deal of unpleasant rain.

One night it blew what Pomona called a “whirlicane,” and we went to
bed very early to keep warm. We heard our boarder on deck in the garden
after we were in bed, and Euphemia said she could not imagine what he
was about, unless he was anchoring his turnips to keep them from blowing
away.

During the night I had a dream. I thought I was a boy again, and was
trying to stand upon my head, a feat for which I had been famous. But
instead of throwing myself forward on my hands, and then raising my
heels backward over my head, in the orthodox manner, I was on my back,
and trying to get on my head from that position. I awoke suddenly, and
found that the footboard of the bedstead was much higher than our heads.
We were lying on a very much inclined plane, with our heads downward.
I roused Euphemia, and we both got out of bed, when, at almost the same
moment, we slipped down the floor into ever so much water.

Euphemia was scarcely awake, and she fell down gurgling. It was dark,
but I heard her fall, and I jumped over the bedstead to her assistance.
I had scarcely raised her up, when I heard a pounding at the front door
or main-hatchway, and our boarder shouted:

“Get up! Come out of that! Open the door! The old boat's turning over!”

My heart fell within me, but I clutched Euphemia. I said no word, and
she simply screamed. I dragged her over the floor, sometimes in the
water and sometimes out of it. I got the dining-room door open and set
her on the stairs. They were in a topsy-turvy condition, but they were
dry. I found a lantern which hung on a nail, with a match-box under
it, and I struck a light. Then I scrambled back and brought her some
clothes.

All this time the boarder was yelling and pounding at the door. When
Euphemia was ready I opened the door and took her out.

“You go dress yourself;” said the boarder. “I'll hold her here until you
come back.”

I left her and found my clothes (which, chair and all, had tumbled
against the foot of the bed and so had not gone into the water), and
soon reappeared on deck. The wind was blowing strongly, but it did not
now seem to be very cold. The deck reminded me of the gang-plank of a
Harlem steamboat at low tide. It was inclined at an angle of more than
forty-five degrees, I am sure. There was light enough for us to see
about us, but the scene and all the dreadful circumstances made me feel
the most intense desire to wake up and find it all a dream. There was no
doubt, however, about the boarder being wide awake.

“Now then,” said he, “take hold of her on that side and we'll help her
over here. You scramble down on that side; it's all dry just there. The
boat's turned over toward the water, and I'll lower her down to you.
I'll let a rope over the sides. You can hold on to that as you go down.”

I got over the bulwarks and let myself down to the ground. Then the
boarder got Euphemia up and slipped her over the side, holding to her
hands, and letting her gently down until I could reach her. She said
never a word, but screamed at times. I carried her a little way up the
shore and set her down. I wanted to take her up to a house near by,
where we bought our milk, but she declined to go until we had saved
Pomona.

So I went back to the boat, having carefully wrapped up Euphemia, to
endeavor to save the girl. I found that the boarder had so arranged
the gang-plank that it was possible, without a very great exercise of
agility, to pass from the shore to the boat. When I first saw him,
on reaching the shelving deck, he was staggering up the stairs with a
dining-room chair and a large framed engraving of Raphael's Dante--an
ugly picture, but full of true feeling; at least so Euphemia always
declared, though I am not quite sure that I know what she meant.

“Where is Pomona?” I said, endeavoring to stand on the hill-side of the
deck.

“I don't know,” said he, “but we must get the things out. The tide's
rising and the wind's getting up. The boat will go over before we know
it.”

“But we must find the girl,” I said. “She can't be left to drown.”

“I don't think it would matter much,” said he, getting over the side
of the boat with his awkward load. “She would be of about as much use
drowned as any other way. If it hadn't been for that hole she cut in the
side of the boat, this would never have happened.”

“You don't think it was that!” I said, holding the picture and the chair
while he let himself down to the gang-plank.

“Yes, it was,” he replied. “The tide's very high, and the water got over
that hole and rushed in. The water and the wind will finish this old
craft before very long.”

And then he took his load from me and dashed down the gang-plank. I went
below to look for Pomona. The lantern still hung on the nail, and I took
it down and went into the kitchen. There was Pomona, dressed, and with
her hat on, quietly packing some things in a basket.

“Come, hurry out of this,” I cried. “Don't you know that this
house--this boat, I mean, is a wreck?”

“Yes, sma'am--sir, I mean--I know it, and I suppose we shall soon be at
the mercy of the waves.”

“Well, then, go as quickly as you can. What are you putting in that
basket?”

“Food,” she said. “We may need it.”

I took her by the shoulder and hurried her on deck, over the bulwark,
down the gang-plank, and so on to the place where I had left Euphemia.

I found the dear girl there, quiet and collected, all up in a little
bunch, to shield herself from the wind. I wasted no time, but hurried
the two women over to the house of our milk-merchant. There, with some
difficulty, I roused the good woman, and after seeing Euphemia and
Pomona safely in the house, I left them to tell the tale, and ran back
to the boat.

The boarder was working like a Trojan. He had already a pile of our
furniture on the beach.

I set about helping him, and for an hour we labored at this hasty and
toilsome moving. It was indeed a toilsome business. The floors were
shelving, the stairs leaned over sideways, ever so far, and the
gang-plank was desperately short and steep.

Still, we saved quite a number of household articles. Some things we
broke and some we forgot, and some things were too big to move in this
way; but we did very well, considering the circumstances.

The wind roared, the tide rose, and the boat groaned and creaked. We
were in the kitchen, trying to take the stove apart (the boarder was
sure we could carry it up, if we could get the pipe out and the legs and
doors off), when we heard a crash. We rushed on deck and found that
the garden had fallen in! Making our way as well as we could toward the
gaping rent in the deck, we saw that the turnip-bed had gone down bodily
into the boarder's room. He did not hesitate, but scrambled down his
narrow stairs. I followed him. He struck a match that he had in his
pocket, and lighted a little lantern that hung under the stairs. His
room was a perfect rubbish heap. The floor, bed, chairs, pitcher,
basin--everything was covered or filled with garden mold and turnips.
Never did I behold such a scene. He stood in the midst of it, holding
his lantern high above his head. At length he spoke.

“If we had time,” he said, “we might come down here and pick out a lot
of turnips.”

“But how about your furniture?” I exclaimed.

“Oh, that's ruined!” he replied.

So we did not attempt to save any of it, but we got hold of his trunk
and carried that on shore.

When we returned, we found that the water was pouring through his
partition, making the room a lake of mud. And, as the water was rising
rapidly below, and the boat was keeling over more and more, we thought
it was time to leave, and we left.

It would not do to go far away from our possessions, which were piled up
in a sad-looking heap on the shore; and so, after I had gone over to the
milk-woman's to assure Euphemia of our safety, the boarder and I passed
the rest of the night--there was not much of it left--in walking up
and down the beach smoking some cigars which he fortunately had in his
pocket.

In the morning I took Euphemia to the hotel, about a mile away--and
arranged for the storage of our furniture there, until we could find
another habitation. This habitation, we determined, was to be in a
substantial house, or part of a house, which should not be affected by
the tides.

During the morning the removal of our effects was successfully
accomplished, and our boarder went to town to look for a furnished room.
He had nothing but his trunk to take to it.

In the afternoon I left Euphemia at the hotel, where she was taking a
nap (she certainly needed it, for she had spent the night in a wooden
rocking-chair at the milk-woman's), and I strolled down to the river to
take a last look at the remains of old Rudder Grange.

I felt sadly enough as I walked along the well-worn path to the
canal-boat, and thought how it had been worn by my feet more than any
other's, and how gladly I had walked that way, so often during that
delightful summer. I forgot all that had been disagreeable, and thought
only of the happy times we had had.

It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and the wind had entirely died
away. When I came within sight of our old home, it presented a doleful
appearance. The bow had drifted out into the river, and was almost
entirely under water. The stern stuck up in a mournful and ridiculous
manner, with its keel, instead of its broadside, presented to the view
of persons on the shore. As I neared the boat I heard a voice. I stopped
and listened. There was no one in sight. Could the sounds come from the
boat? I concluded that it must be so, and I walked up closer. Then I
heard distinctly the words:

“He grasp ed her by the thro at and yell ed, swear to me thou nev er
wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot heart's blood shall stain this mar
bel fib or; she gave one gry vy ous gasp and--”

It was Pomona!

Doubtless she had climbed up the stern of the boat and had descended
into the depths of the wreck to rescue her beloved book, the reading of
which had so long been interrupted by my harsh decrees. Could I break
in on this one hour of rapture? I had not the heart to do it, and as
I slowly moved away, there came to me the last words that I ever heard
from Rudder Grange:

“And with one wild shry ik to heav en her heart's blo od spat ter ed
that prynce ly home of woe--”



CHAPTER VI. THE NEW RUDDER GRANGE.


I have before given an account of the difficulties we encountered when
we started out house-hunting, and it was this doleful experience which
made Euphemia declare that before we set out on a second search for a
residence, we should know exactly what we wanted.

To do this, we must know how other people live, we must examine into the
advantages and disadvantages of the various methods of housekeeping, and
make up our minds on the subject.

When we came to this conclusion we were in a city boarding-house, and
were entirely satisfied that this style of living did not suit us at
all.

At this juncture I received a letter from the gentleman who had boarded
with us on the canal-boat. Shortly after leaving us the previous fall,
he had married a widow lady with two children, and was now keeping house
in a French flat in the upper part of the city. We had called upon the
happy couple soon after their marriage, and the letter, now received,
contained an invitation for us to come and dine, and spend the night.

“We'll go,” said Euphemia. “There's nothing I want so much as to see how
people keep house in a French flat. Perhaps we'll like it. And I must
see those children.” So we went.

The house, as Euphemia remarked, was anything but flat. It was very tall
indeed--the tallest house in the neighborhood. We entered the vestibule,
the outer door being open, and beheld, on one side of us, a row
of bell-handles. Above each of these handles was the mouth of a
speaking-tube, and above each of these, a little glazed frame containing
a visiting-card.

“Isn't this cute?” said Euphemia, reading over the cards. “Here's his
name and this is his bell and tube! Which would you do first, ring or
blow?”

“My dear,” said I, “you don't blow up those tubes. We must ring the
bell, just as if it were an ordinary front-door bell, and instead of
coming to the door, some one will call down the tube to us.”

I rang the bell under the boarder's name, and very soon a voice at the
tube said:

“Well?”

Then I told our names, and in an instant the front door opened.

“Why, their flat must be right here,” whispered Euphemia. “How quickly
the girl came!”

And she looked for the girl as we entered. But there was no one there.

“Their flat is on the fifth story,” said I. “He mentioned that in his
letter. We had better shut the door and go up.”

Up and up the softly carpeted stairs we climbed, and not a soul we saw
or heard.

“It is like an enchanted cavern,” said Euphemia. “You say the magic
word, the door in the rock opens and you go on, and on, through the
vaulted passages--”

“Until you come to the ogre,” said the boarder, who was standing at the
top of the stairs. He did not behave at all like an ogre, for he was
very glad to see us, and so was his wife. After we had settled down
in the parlor and the boarder's wife had gone to see about something
concerning the dinner, Euphemia asked after the children.

“I hope they haven't gone to bed,” she said, “for I do so want to see
the dear little things.”

The ex-boarder, as Euphemia called him, smiled grimly.

“They're not so very little,” he said. “My wife's son is nearly grown.
He is at an academy in Connecticut, and he expects to go into a civil
engineer's office in the spring. His sister is older than he is. My wife
married--in the first instance--when she was very young--very young in
deed.”

“Oh!” said Euphemia; and then, after a pause, “And neither of them is at
home now?”

“No,” said the ex-boarder. “By the way, what do you think of this dado?
It is a portable one; I devised it myself. You can take it away with you
to another house when you move. But there is the dinner-bell. I'll show
you over the establishment after we have had something to eat.”

After our meal we made a tour of inspection. The flat, which included
the whole floor, contained nine or ten rooms, of all shapes and sizes.
The corners in some of the rooms were cut off and shaped up into closets
and recesses, so that Euphemia said the corners of every room were in
some other room.

Near the back of the flat was a dumb-waiter, with bells and
speaking-tubes. When the butcher, the baker, or the kerosene-lamp maker,
came each morning, he rang the bell, and called up the tube to know what
was wanted. The order was called down, and he brought the things in the
afternoon.

All this greatly charmed Euphemia. It was so cute, so complete. There
were no interviews with disagreeable trades-people, none of the ordinary
annoyances of housekeeping. Everything seemed to be done with a bell, a
speaking-tube or a crank.

“Indeed,” said the ex-boarder, “if it were not for people tripping
over the wires, I could rig up attachments by which I could sit in the
parlor, and by using pedals and a key-board, I could do all the work of
this house without getting out of my easy-chair.”

One of the most peculiar features of the establishment was the servant's
room. This was at the rear end of the floor, and as there was not much
space left after the other rooms had been made, it was very small; so
small, indeed, that it would accommodate only a very short bedstead.
This made it necessary for our friends to consider the size of the
servant when they engaged her.

“There were several excellent girls at the intelligence office where I
called,” said the ex-boarder, “but I measured them, and they were all
too tall. So we had to take a short one, who is only so so. There was
one big Scotch girl who was the very person for us, and I would have
taken her if my wife had not objected to my plan for her accommodation.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Well,” said he, “I first thought of cutting a hole in the partition
wall at the foot of the bed, for her to put her feet through.”

“Never!” said his wife, emphatically. “I would never have allowed that.”

“And then,” continued he, “I thought of turning the bed around, and
cutting a larger hole, through which she might have put her head into
the little room on this side. A low table could have stood under the
hole, and her head might have rested on a cushion on the table very
comfortably.”

“My dear,” said his wife, “it would have frightened me to death to go
into that room and see that head on a cushion on a table--”

“Like John the Baptist,” interrupted Euphemia.

“Well,” said our ex-boarder, “the plan would have had its advantages.”

“Oh!” cried Euphemia, looking out of a back window. “What a lovely
little iron balcony! Do you sit out there on warm evenings?”

“That's a fire-escape,” said the ex-boarder. “We don't go out there
unless it is very hot indeed, on account of the house being on fire.
You see there is a little door in the floor of the balcony and an iron
ladder leading to the balcony beneath, and so on, down to the first
story.”

“And you have to creep through that hole and go down that dreadful steep
ladder every time there is a fire?” said Euphemia.

“Well, I guess we would never go down but once,” he answered.

“No, indeed,” said Euphemia; “you'd fall down and break your neck the
first time,” and she turned away from the window with a very grave
expression on her face.

Soon after this our hostess conducted Euphemia to the guest-chamber,
while her husband and I finished a bed-time cigar.

When I joined Euphemia in her room, she met me with a mysterious
expression on her face. She shut the door, and then said in a very
earnest tone:

“Do you see that little bedstead in the corner? I did not notice it
until I came in just now, and then, being quite astonished, I said,
'Why here's a child's bed; who sleeps here?' 'Oh,' says she, 'that's
our little Adele's bedstead. We have it in our room when she's here.'
'Little Adele!' said I, 'I didn't know she was little--not small enough
for that bed, at any rate.' 'Why, yes,' said she, 'Adele is only four
years old. The bedstead is quite large enough for her.' 'And she is not
here now?' I said, utterly amazed at all this. 'No,' she answered, 'she
is not here now, but we try to have her with us as much as we can, and
always keep her little bed ready for her.' 'I suppose she's with her
father's people,' I said, and she answered, 'Oh yes,' and bade me
good-night. What does all this mean? Our boarder told us that the
daughter is grown up, and here his wife declares that she is only four
years old! I don't know what in the world to make of this mystery!”

I could give Euphemia no clue. I supposed there was some mistake, and
that was all I could say, except that I was sleepy, and that we could
find out all about it in the morning. But Euphemia could not dismiss the
subject from her mind. She said no more,--but I could see--until I fell
asleep--that she was thinking about it.

It must have been about the middle of the night, perhaps later, when
I was suddenly awakened by Euphemia starting up in the bed, with the
exclamation:

“I have it!”

“What?” I cried, sitting up in a great hurry. “What is it? What have you
got? What's the matter?”

“I know it!” she said, “I know it. Our boarder is a GRANDFATHER! Little
Adele is the grown-up daughter's child. He was quite particular to say
that his wife married VERY young. Just to think of it! So short a time
ago, he was living with us--a bachelor--and now, in four short months,
he is a grandfather!”

Carefully propounded inquiries, in the morning, proved Euphemia's
conclusions to be correct.

The next evening, when we were quietly sitting in our own room, Euphemia
remarked that she did not wish to have anything to do with French flats.

“They seem to be very convenient,” I said.

“Oh yes, convenient enough, but I don't like them. I would hate to live
where everything let down like a table-lid, or else turned with a crank.
And when I think of those fire-escapes, and the boarder's grandchild, it
makes me feel very unpleasantly.”

“But the grandchild don't follow as a matter of course,” said I.

“No,” she answered, “but I shall never like French flats.”

And we discussed them no more.

For some weeks we examined into every style of economic and respectable
housekeeping, and many methods of living in what Euphemia called
“imitation comfort” were set aside as unworthy of consideration.

“My dear,” said Euphemia, one evening, “what we really ought to do is to
build. Then we would have exactly the house we want.”

“Very true,” I replied; “but to build a house, a man must have money.”

“Oh no!” said she, “or at least not much. For one thing, you might join
a building association. In some of those societies I know that you only
have to pay a dollar a week.”

“But do you suppose the association builds houses for all its members?”
 I asked.

“Of course I suppose so. Else why is it called a building association?”

I had read a good deal about these organizations, and I explained to
Euphemia that a dollar a week was never received by any of them in
payment for a new house.

“Then build yourself,” she said; “I know how that can be done.”

“Oh, it's easy enough,” I remarked, “if you have the money.”

“No, you needn't have any money,” said Euphemia, rather hastily. “Just
let me show you. Supposing, for instance, that you want to build a house
worth--well, say twenty thousand dollars, in some pretty town near the
city.”

“I would rather figure on a cheaper house than that for a country
place,” I interrupted.

“Well then, say two thousand dollars. You get masons, and carpenters,
and people to dig the cellar, and you engage them to build your house.
You needn't pay them until it's done, of course. Then when it's all
finished, borrow two thousand dollars and give the house as security.
After that you see, you have only to pay the interest on the borrowed
money. When you save enough money to pay back the loan, the house is
your own. Now, isn't that a good plan?”

“Yes,” said I, “if there could be found people who would build your
house and wait for their money until some one would lend you its full
value on a mortgage.”

“Well,” said Euphemia, “I guess they could be found if you would only
look for them.”

“I'll look for them, when I go to heaven,” I said.

We gave up for the present, the idea of building or buying a house, and
determined to rent a small place in the country, and then, as Euphemia
wisely said, if we liked it, we might buy it. After she had dropped her
building projects she thought that one ought to know just how a house
would suit before having it on one's hands.

We could afford something better than a canal-boat now, and therefore we
were not so restricted as in our first search for a house. But, the
one thing which troubled my wife--and, indeed, caused me much anxious
thought, was that scourge of almost all rural localities--tramps. It
would be necessary for me to be away all day,--and we could not afford
to keep a man,--so we must be careful to get a house somewhere off the
line of ordinary travel, or else in a well-settled neighborhood, where
there would be some one near at hand in case of unruly visitors.

“A village I don't like,” said Euphemia: “there is always so much
gossip, and people know all about what you have, and what you do. And
yet it would be very lonely, and perhaps dangerous, for us to live
off somewhere, all by ourselves. And there is another objection to a
village. We don't want a house with a small yard and a garden at the
back. We ought to have a dear little farm, with some fields for corn,
and a cow, and a barn and things of that sort. All that would be
lovely. I'll tell you what we want,” she cried, seized with a sudden
inspiration; “we ought to try to get the end-house of a village. Then
our house could be near the neighbors, and our farm could stretch out a
little way into the country beyond us. Let us fix our minds upon such a
house and I believe we can get it.”

So we fixed our minds, but in the course of a week or two we unfixed
them several times to allow the consideration of places, which otherwise
would have been out of range; and during one of these intervals of
mental disfixment we took a house.

It was not the end-house of a village, but it was in the outskirts of
a very small rural settlement. Our nearest neighbor was within vigorous
shouting distance, and the house suited us so well in other respects,
that we concluded that this would do. The house was small, but large
enough. There were some trees around it, and a little lawn in front.
There was a garden, a small barn and stable, a pasture field, and land
enough besides for small patches of corn and potatoes. The rent was low,
the water good, and no one can imagine how delighted we were.

We did not furnish the whole house at first, but what mattered it? We
had no horse or cow, but the pasture and barn were ready for them. We
did not propose to begin with everything at once.

Our first evening in that house was made up of hours of unalloyed bliss.
We walked from room to room; we looked out on the garden and the lawn;
we sat on the little porch while I smoked.

“We were happy at Rudder Grange,” said Euphemia; “but that was only
a canal-boat, and could not, in the nature of things, have been a
permanent home.”

“No,” said I, “it could not have been permanent. But, in many respects,
it was a delightful home. The very name of it brings pleasant thoughts.”

“It was a nice name,” said Euphemia, “and I'll tell you what we might
do: Let us call this place Rudder Grange--the New Rudder Grange! The
name will do just as well for a house as for a boat.”

I agreed on the spot, and the house was christened.

Our household was small; we had a servant--a German woman; and we had
ourselves, that was all.

I did not do much in the garden; it was too late in the season. The
former occupant had planted some corn and potatoes, with a few other
vegetables, and these I weeded and hoed, working early in the morning
and when I came home in the afternoon. Euphemia tied up the rose-vines,
trimmed the bushes, and with a little rake and hoe she prepared a
flower-bed in front of the parlor-window. This exercise gave us splendid
appetites, and we loved our new home more and more.

Our German girl did not suit us exactly at first, and day by day she
grew to suit us less. She was a quiet, kindly, pleasant creature, and
delighted in an out-of-door life. She was as willing to weed in the
garden as she was to cook or wash. At first I was very much pleased with
this, because, as I remarked to Euphemia, you can find very few girls
who would be willing to work in the garden, and she might be made very
useful.

But, after a time, Euphemia began to get a little out of patience with
her. She worked out-of-doors entirely too much. And what she did there,
as well as some of her work in the house, was very much like certain
German literature--you did not know how it was done, or what it was for.

One afternoon I found Euphemia quite annoyed.

“Look here,” she said, “and see what that girl has been at work at,
nearly all this afternoon. I was upstairs sewing and thought she was
ironing. Isn't it too provoking?”

It WAS provoking. The contemplative German had collected a lot of short
ham-bones--where she found them I cannot imagine--and had made of them
a border around my wife's flower-bed. The bones stuck up straight a few
inches above the ground, all along the edge of the bed, and the marrow
cavity of each one was filled with earth in which she had planted seeds.

“'These,' she says, 'will spring up and look beautiful,'” said Euphemia;
“they have that style of thing in her country.”

“Then let her take them off with her to her country,” I exclaimed.

“No, no,” said Euphemia, hurriedly, “don't kick them out. It would only
wound her feelings. She did it all for the best, and thought it
would please me to have such a border around my bed. But she is too
independent, and neglects her proper work. I will give her a week's
notice and get another servant. When she goes we can take these horrid
bones away. But I hope nobody will call on us in the meantime.”

“Must we keep these things here a whole week?” I asked.

“Oh, I can't turn her away without giving her a fair notice. That would
be cruel.”

I saw the truth of the remark, and determined to bear with the bones and
her rather than be unkind.

That night Euphemia informed the girl of her decision, and the next
morning, soon after I had left, the good German appeared with her bonnet
on and her carpet-bag in her hand, to take leave of her mistress.

“What!” cried Euphemia. “You are not going to-day?”

“If it is goot to go at all it is goot to go now,” said the girl.

“And you will go off and leave me without any one in the house, after my
putting myself out to give you a fair notice? It's shameful!”

“I think it is very goot for me to go now,” quietly replied the girl.
“This house is very loneful. I will go to-morrow in the city to see your
husband for my money. Goot morning.” And off she trudged to the station.

Before I reached the house that afternoon, Euphemia rushed out to tell
this story. I would not like to say how far I kicked those ham-bones.

This German girl had several successors, and some of them suited as
badly and left as abruptly as herself; but Euphemia never forgot the
ungrateful stab given her by this “ham-bone girl,” as she always
called her. It was her first wound of the kind, and it came in the
very beginning of the campaign when she was all unused to this domestic
warfare.



CHAPTER VII. TREATING OF AN UNSUCCESSFUL BROKER AND A DOG.


It was a couple of weeks, or thereabouts, after this episode that
Euphemia came down to the gate to meet me on my return from the city.
I noticed a very peculiar expression on her face. She looked both
thoughtful and pleased. Almost the first words she said to me were
these:

“A tramp came here to-day.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” I exclaimed. “That's the worst news I have
had yet. I did hope that we were far enough from the line of travel to
escape these scourges. How did you get rid of him? Was he impertinent?”

“You must not feel that way about all tramps,” said she. “Sometimes they
are deserving of our charity, and ought to be helped. There is a great
difference in them.”

“That may be,” I said; “but what of this one? When was he here, and when
did he go?”

“He did not go at all. He is here now.”

“Here now!” I cried. “Where is he?”

“Do not call out so loud,” said Euphemia, putting her hand on my arm.
“You will waken him. He is asleep.”

“Asleep!” said I. “A tramp? Here?”

“Yes. Stop, let me tell you about him. He told me his story, and it is
a sad one. He is a middle-aged man--fifty perhaps--and has been rich.
He was once a broker in Wall street, but lost money by the failure of
various railroads--the Camden and Amboy, for one.”

“That hasn't failed,” I interrupted.

“Well then it was the Northern Pacific, or some other one of them--at
any rate I know it was either a railroad or a bank,--and he soon became
very poor. He has a son in Cincinnati, who is a successful merchant, and
lives in a fine house, with horses and carriages, and all that; and this
poor man has written to his son, but has never had any answer. So now
he is going to walk to Cincinnati to see him. He knows he will not be
turned away if he can once meet his son, face to face. He was very tired
when he stopped here,--and he has ever and ever so far to walk yet, you
know,--and so after I had given him something to eat, I let him lie down
in the outer kitchen, on that roll of rag-carpet that is there. I spread
it out for him. It is a hard bed for one who has known comfort, but he
seems to sleep soundly.”

“Let me see him,” said I, and I walked back to the outer kitchen.

There lay the unsuccessful broker fast asleep. His face, which was
turned toward me as I entered, showed that it had been many days since
he had been shaved, and his hair had apparently been uncombed for about
the same length of time. His clothes were very old, and a good deal
torn, and he wore one boot and one shoe.

“Whew!” said I. “Have you been giving him whisky?”

“No,” whispered Euphemia, “of course not. I noticed that smell, and he
said he had been cleaning his clothes with alcohol.”

“They needed it, I'm sure,” I remarked as I turned away. “And now,” said
I, “where's the girl?”

“This is her afternoon out. What is the matter? You look frightened.”

“Oh, I'm not frightened, but I find I must go down to the station again.
Just run up and put on your bonnet. It will be a nice little walk for
you.”

I had been rapidly revolving the matter in my mind. What was I to do
with this wretch who was now asleep in my outer kitchen? If I woke him
up and drove him off,--and I might have difficulty in doing it,--there
was every reason to believe that he would not go far, but return
at night and commit some revengeful act. I never saw a more
sinister-looking fellow. And he was certainly drunk. He must not be
allowed to wander about our neighborhood. I would go for the constable
and have him arrested.

So I locked the door from the kitchen into the house and then the
outside door of the kitchen, and when my wife came down we hurried off.
On the way I told her what I intended to do, and what I thought of
our guest. She answered scarcely a word, and I hoped that she was
frightened. I think she was.

The constable, who was also coroner of our township, had gone to a
creek, three miles away, to hold an inquest, and there was nobody to
arrest the man. The nearest police-station was at Hackingford, six miles
away, on the railroad. I held a consultation with the station-master,
and the gentleman who kept the grocery-store opposite.

They could think of nothing to be done except to shoot the man, and to
that I objected.

“However,” said I, “he can't stay there;” and a happy thought just then
striking me, I called to the boy who drove the village express-wagon,
and engaged him for a job. The wagon was standing at the station, and to
save time, I got in and rode to my house. Euphemia went over to call on
the groceryman's wife until I returned.

I had determined that the man should be taken away, although, until I
was riding home, I had not made up my mind where to have him taken. But
on the road I settled this matter.

On reaching the house, we drove into the yard as close to the kitchen
as we could go. Then I unlocked the door, and the boy--who was a big,
strapping fellow--entered with me. We found the ex-broker still wrapped
in the soundest slumber. Leaving the boy to watch him, I went upstairs
and got a baggage-tag which I directed to the chief of police at the
police station in Hackingford. I returned to the kitchen and fastened
this tag, conspicuously, on the lapel of the sleeper's coat. Then, with
a clothes-line, I tied him up carefully, hand and foot. To all this he
offered not the slightest opposition. When he was suitably packed, with
due regard to the probable tenderness of wrist and ankle in one brought
up in luxury, the boy and I carried him to the wagon.

He was a heavy load, and we may have bumped him a little, but his sleep
was not disturbed. Then we drove him to the express office. This was at
the railroad station, and the station-master was also express agent. At
first he was not inclined to receive my parcel, but when I assured him
that all sorts of live things were sent by express, and that I could see
no reason for making an exception in this case, he added my arguments
to his own disposition, as a house-holder, to see the goods forwarded to
their destination, and so gave me a receipt, and pasted a label on the
ex-broker's shoulder. I set no value on the package, which I prepaid.

“Now then,” said the station-master, “he'll go all right, if the express
agent on the train will take him.”

This matter was soon settled, for, in a few minutes, the train stopped
at the station. My package was wheeled to the express car, and two
porters, who entered heartily into the spirit of the thing, hoisted it
into the car. The train-agent, who just then noticed the character of
the goods, began to declare that he would not have the fellow in his
car; but my friend the station-master shouted out that everything was
all right,--the man was properly packed, invoiced and paid for, and the
train, which was behind time, moved away before the irate agent could
take measures to get rid of his unwelcome freight.

“Now,” said I, “there'll be a drunken man at the police-station in
Hackingford in about half-an-hour. His offense will be as evident there
as here, and they can do what they please with him. I shall telegraph,
to explain the matter and prepare them for his arrival.”

When I had done this Euphemia and I went home. The tramp had cost me
some money, but I was well satisfied with my evening's work, and felt
that the township owed me, at least, a vote of thanks.

But I firmly made up my mind that Euphemia should never again be left
unprotected. I would not even trust to a servant who would agree to have
no afternoons out. I would get a dog.

The next day I advertised for a fierce watchdog, and in the course of
a week I got one. Before I procured him I examined into the merits,
and price, of about one hundred dogs. My dog was named Pete, but I
determined to make a change in that respect. He was a very tall, bony,
powerful beast, of a dull black color, and with a lower jaw that would
crack the hind-leg of an ox, so I was informed. He was of a varied
breed, and the good Irishman of whom I bought him said he had fine blood
in him, and attempted to refer him back to the different classes of dogs
from which he had been derived. But after I had had him awhile, I made
an analysis based on his appearance and character, and concluded that he
was mainly blood-hound, shaded with wolf-dog and mastiff, and picked out
with touches of bull-dog.

The man brought him home for me, and chained him up in an unused
wood-shed, for I had no doghouse as yet.

“Now thin,” said he, “all you've got to do is to keep 'im chained up
there for three or four days till he gets used to ye. An' I'll tell ye
the best way to make a dog like ye. Jist give him a good lickin'. Then
he'll know yer his master, and he'll like ye iver aftherward. There's
plenty of people that don't know that. And, by the way, sir, that
chain's none too strong for 'im. I got it when he wasn't mor'n half
grown. Ye'd bether git him a new one.”

When the man had gone, I stood and looked at the dog, and could not
help hoping that he would learn to like me without the intervention of a
thrashing. Such harsh methods were not always necessary, I felt sure.

After our evening meal--a combination of dinner and supper, of which
Euphemia used to say that she did not know whether to call it dinper or
supner--we went out together to look at our new guardian.

Euphemia was charmed with him.

“How massive!” she exclaimed. “What splendid limbs! And look at that
immense head! I know I shall never be afraid now. I feel that that is a
dog I can rely upon. Make him stand up, please, so I can see how tall he
is.”

“I think it would be better not to disturb him,” I answered, “he may
be tired. He will get up of his own accord very soon. And indeed I
hope that he will not get up until I go to the store and get him a new
chain.”

As I said this I made a step forward to look at his chain, and at that
instant a low growl, like the first rumblings of an earthquake, ran
through the dog.

I stepped back again and walked over to the village for the chain. The
dog-chains shown me at the store all seemed too short and too weak, and
I concluded to buy two chains such as used for hitching horses and to
join them so as to make a long as well as a strong one of them. I wanted
him to be able to come out of the wood-shed when it should be necessary
to show himself.

On my way home with my purchase the thought suddenly struck me, How will
you put that chain on your dog? The memory of the rumbling growl was
still vivid.

I never put the chain on him. As I approached him with it in my hand, he
rose to his feet, his eyes sparkled, his black lips drew back from his
mighty teeth, he gave one savage bark and sprang at me.

His chain held and I went into the house. That night he broke loose and
went home to his master, who lived fully ten miles away.

When I found in the morning that he was gone I was in doubt whether it
would be better to go and look for him or not. But I concluded to keep
up a brave heart, and found him, as I expected, at the place where I had
bought him. The Irishman took him to my house again and I had to pay for
the man's loss of time as well as for his fare on the railroad. But the
dog's old master chained him up with the new chain and I felt repaid for
my outlay.

Every morning and night I fed that dog, and I spoke as kindly and gently
to him as I knew how. But he seemed to cherish a distaste for me, and
always greeted me with a growl. He was an awful dog.

About a week after the arrival of this animal, I was astonished and
frightened on nearing the house to hear a scream from my wife. I rushed
into the yard and was greeted with a succession of screams from two
voices, that seemed to come from the vicinity of the wood-shed. Hurrying
thither, I perceived Euphemia standing on the roof of the shed in
perilous proximity to the edge, while near the ridge of the roof sat our
hired girl with her handkerchief over her head.

“Hurry, hurry!” cried Euphemia. “Climb up here! The dog is loose! Be
quick! Be quick! Oh! he's coming, he's coming!”

I asked for no explanation. There was a rail-fence by the side of the
shed and I sprang on this, and was on the roof just as the dog came
bounding and barking from the barn.

Instantly Euphemia had me in her arms, and we came very near going off
the roof together.

“I never feared to have you come home before,” she sobbed. “I thought he
would tear you limb from limb.”

“But how did all this happen?” said I.

“Och! I kin hardly remember,” said the girl from under her handkerchief.

“Well, I didn't ask you,” I said, somewhat too sharply.

“Oh, I'll tell you,” said Euphemia. “There was a man at the gate and he
looked suspicious and didn't try to come in, and Mary was at the barn
looking for an egg, and I thought this was a good time to see whether
the dog was a good watch-dog or not, so I went and unchained him--”

“Did you unchain that dog?” I cried.

“Yes, and the minute he was loose he made a rush at the gate, but the
man was gone before he got there, and as he ran down the road I saw that
he was Mr. Henderson's man, who was coming here on an errand, I expect,
and then I went down to the barn to get Mary to come and help me chain
up the dog, and when she came out he began to chase me and then her;
and we were so frightened that we climbed up here, and I don't know,
I'm sure, how I ever got up that fence; and do you think he can climb up
here?”

“Oh no! my dear,” I said.

“An' he's just the beast to go afther a stip-ladder,” said the girl, in
muffled tones.

“And what are we to do?” asked Euphemia. “We can't eat and sleep up
here. Don't you think that if we were all to shout out together, we
could make some neighbor hear?”

“Oh yes!” I said, “there is no doubt of it. But then, if a neighbor
came, the dog would fall on him--”

“And tear him limb from limb,” interrupted Euphemia.

“Yes, and besides, my dear, I should hate to have any of the neighbors
come and find us all up here. It would look so utterly absurd. Let me
try and think of some other plan.”

“Well, please be as quick as you can. It's dreadful to be--who's that?”

I looked up and saw a female figure just entering the yard.

“Oh, what shall we do” exclaimed Euphemia. “The dog will get her. Call
to her!”

“No, no,” said I, “don't make a noise. It will only bring the dog. He
seems to have gone to the barn, or somewhere. Keep perfectly quiet, and
she may go up on the porch, and as the front door is not locked, she may
rush into the house, if she sees him coming.”

“I do hope she will do that,” said Euphemia, anxiously.

“And yet,” said I, “it's not pleasant to have strangers going into the
house when there's no one there.”

“But it's better than seeing a stranger torn to pieces before your
eyes,” said Euphemia.

“Yes,” I replied, “it is. Don't you think we might get down now? The dog
isn't here.”

“No, no!” cried Euphemia. “There he is now, coming this way. And look at
that woman! She is coming right to this shed.”

Sure enough, our visitor had passed by the front door, and was walking
toward us. Evidently she had heard our voices.

“Don't come here!” cried Euphemia. “You'll be killed! Run! run! The dog
is coming! Why, mercy on us! It's Pomona!”



CHAPTER VIII. POMONA ONCE MORE.


Sure enough, it was Pomona. There stood our old servant-girl, of the
canal-boat, with a crooked straw bonnet on her head, a faded yellow
parasol in her hand, a parcel done up in newspaper under her arm, and an
expression of astonishment on her face.

“Well, truly!” she ejaculated.

“Into the house, quick!” I said. “We have a savage dog!”

“And here he is!” cried Euphemia. “Oh! she will be torn to atoms.”

Straight at Pomona came the great black beast, barking furiously. But
the girl did not move; she did not even turn her head to look at the
dog, who stopped before he reached her and began to rush wildly around
her, barking terribly.

We held our breath. I tried to say “get out!” or “lie down!” but my
tongue could not form the words.

“Can't you get up here?” gasped Euphemia.

“I don't want to,” said the girl.

The dog now stopped barking, and stood looking at Pomona, occasionally
glancing up at us. Pomona took not the slightest notice of him.

“Do you know, ma'am,” said she to Euphemia, “that if I had come here
yesterday, that dog would have had my life's blood.”

“And why don't he have it to-day?” said Euphemia, who, with myself, was
utterly amazed at the behavior of the dog.

“Because I know more to-day than I did yesterday,” answered Pomona. “It
is only this afternoon that I read something, as I was coming here on
the cars. This is it,” she continued, unwrapping her paper parcel, and
taking from it one of the two books it contained. “I finished this part
just as the cars stopped, and I put my scissors in the place; I'll read
it to you.”

Standing there with one book still under her arm, the newspaper half
unwrapped from it, hanging down and flapping in the breeze, she opened
the other volume at the scissors-place, turned back a page or two, and
began to read as follows:


“Lord Edward slowly san-ter-ed up the bro-ad anc-es-tral walk, when
sudden-ly from out a cop-se, there sprang a fur-i-ous hound. The
marsh-man, con-ce-al-ed in a tree expected to see the life's blood of
the young nob-le-man stain the path. But no, Lord Edward did not stop
nor turn his head. With a smile, he strode stead-i-ly on. Well he knew
that if by be-traying no em-otion, he could show the dog that he was
walking where he had a right, the bru-te would re-cog-nize that right
and let him pass un-sca-thed. Thus in this moment of peril his nob-le
courage saved him. The hound, abashed, returned to his cov-ert, and Lord
Edward pass-ed on.

“Foi-led again,” mutter-ed the marsh-man.


“Now, then,” said Pomona, closing the book, “you see I remembered
that, the minute I saw the dog coming, and I didn't betray any emotion.
Yesterday, now, when I didn't know it, I'd 'a been sure to betray
emotion, and he would have had my life's blood. Did he drive you up
there?”

“Yes,” said Euphemia; and she hastily explained the situation.

“Then I guess I'd better chain him up,” remarked Pomona; and advancing
to the dog she took him boldly by the collar and pulled him toward the
shed. The animal hung back at first, but soon followed her, and she
chained him up securely.

“Now you can come down,” said Pomona.

I assisted Euphemia to the ground, and Pomona persuaded the hired girl
to descend.

“Will he grab me by the leg?” asked the girl.

“No; get down, gump,” said Pomona, and down she scrambled.

We took Pomona into the house with us and asked her news of herself.

“Well,” said she, “there ain't much to tell. I staid awhile at the
institution, but I didn't get much good there, only I learned to read
to myself, because if I read out loud they came and took the book away.
Then I left there and went to live out, but the woman was awful mean.
She throwed away one of my books and I was only half through it. It was
a real good book, named 'The Bridal Corpse, or Montregor's Curse,' and
I had to pay for it at the circulatin' library. So I left her quick
enough, and then I went on the stage.”

“On the stage!” cried Euphemia. “What did you do on the stage?”

“Scrub,” replied Pomona. “You see that I thought if I could get anything
to do at the theayter, I could work my way up, so I was glad to get
scrubbin'. I asked the prompter, one morning, if he thought there was a
chance for me to work up, and he said yes, I might scrub the galleries,
and then I told him that I didn't want none of his lip, and I pretty
soon left that place. I heard you was akeepin' house out here, and so I
thought I'd come along and see you, and if you hadn't no girl I'd like
to live with you again, and I guess you might as well take me, for that
other girl said, when she got down from the shed, that she was goin'
away to-morrow; she wouldn't stay in no house where they kept such a
dog, though I told her I guessed he was only cuttin' 'round because he
was so glad to get loose.”

“Cutting around!” exclaimed Euphemia. “It was nothing of the kind. If
you had seen him you would have known better. But did you come now to
stay? Where are your things?”

“On me,” replied Pomona.

When Euphemia found that the Irish girl really intended to leave, we
consulted together and concluded to engage Pomona, and I went so far as
to agree to carry her books to and from the circulating library to which
she subscribed, hoping thereby to be able to exercise some influence
on her taste. And thus part of the old family of Rudder Grange had come
together again. True, the boarder was away, but, as Pomona remarked,
when she heard about him, “You couldn't always expect to ever regain the
ties that had always bound everybody.”

Our delight and interest in our little farm increased day by day. In
a week or two after Pomona's arrival I bought a cow. Euphemia was
very anxious to have an Alderney,--they were such gentle, beautiful
creatures,--but I could not afford such a luxury. I might possibly
compass an Alderney calf, but we would have to wait a couple of years
for our milk, and Euphemia said it would be better to have a common cow
than to do that.

Great was our inward satisfaction when the cow, our OWN cow, walked
slowly and solemnly into our yard and began to crop the clover on our
little lawn. Pomona and I gently drove her to the barn, while Euphemia
endeavored to quiet the violent demonstrations of the dog (fortunately
chained) by assuring him that this was OUR cow and that she was to live
here, and that he was to take care of her and never bark at her. All
this and much more, delivered in the earnest and confidential tone in
which ladies talk to infants and dumb animals, made the dog think that
he was to be let loose to kill the cow, and he bounded and leaped with
delight, tugging at his chain so violently that Euphemia became a little
frightened and left him. This dog had been named Lord Edward, at the
earnest solicitation of Pomona, and he was becoming somewhat reconciled
to his life with us. He allowed me to unchain him at night and I could
generally chain him up in the morning without trouble if I had a good
big plate of food with which to tempt him into the shed.

Before supper we all went down to the barn to see the milking. Pomona,
who knew all about such things, having been on a farm in her first
youth, was to be the milkmaid. But when she began operations, she did no
more than begin. Milk as industriously as she might, she got no milk.

“This is a queer cow,” said Pomona.

“Are you sure that you know how to milk?” asked Euphemia anxiously.

“Can I milk?” said Pomona. “Why, of course, ma'am. I've seen 'em milk
hundreds of times.”

“But you never milked, yourself?” I remarked.

“No, sir, but I know just how it's done.”

That might be, but she couldn't do it, and at last we had to give up the
matter in despair, and leave the poor cow until morning, when Pomona was
to go for a man who occasionally worked on the place, and engage him to
come and milk for us.

That night as we were going to bed I looked out of the window at the
barn which contained the cow, and was astonished to see that there was a
light inside of the building.

“What!” I exclaimed. “Can't we be left in peaceful possession of a cow
for a single night?” And, taking my revolver, I hurried down-stairs and
out-of-doors, forgetting my hat in my haste. Euphemia screamed after me
to be careful and keep the pistol pointed away from me.

I whistled for the dog as I went out, but to my surprise he did not
answer.

“Has he been killed?” I thought, and, for a moment, I wished that I was
a large family of brothers--all armed.

But on my way to the barn I met a person approaching with a lantern and
a dog. It was Pomona, and she had a milk-pail on her arm.

“See here, sir,” she said, “it's mor'n half full. I just made up my mind
that I'd learn to milk--if it took me all night. I didn't go to bed at
all, and I've been at the barn fur an hour. And there ain't no need of
my goin' after no man in the mornin',” said she, hanging up the barn key
on its nail.

I simply mention this circumstance to show what kind of a girl Pomona
had grown to be.

We were all the time at work in some way, improving our little place.
“Some day we will buy it,” said Euphemia. We intended to have some wheat
put in in the fall and next year we would make the place fairly crack
with luxuriance. We would divide the duties of the farm, and, among
other things, Euphemia would take charge of the chickens. She wished to
do this entirely herself, so that there might be one thing that should
be all her own, just as my work in town was all my own. As she wished
to buy the chickens and defray all the necessary expenses out of her own
private funds, I could make no objections, and, indeed, I had no desire
to do so. She bought a chicken-book, and made herself mistress of
the subject. For a week, there was a strong chicken flavor in all our
conversation.

This was while the poultry yard was building. There was a chicken-house
on the place, but no yard, and Euphemia intended to have a good big one,
because she was going into the business to make money.

“Perhaps my chickens may buy the place,” she said, and I very much hoped
they would.

Everything was to be done very systematically. She would have Leghorns,
Brahmas, and common fowls. The first, because they laid so many eggs;
the second, because they were such fine, big fowls, and the third,
because they were such good mothers.

“We will eat, and sell the eggs of the first and third classes,” she
said, “and set the eggs of the second class, under the hens of the third
class.”

“There seems to be some injustice in that arrangement,” I said, “for the
first class will always be childless; the second class will have nothing
to do with their offspring, while the third will be obliged to bring up
and care for the children of others.”

But I really had no voice in this matter. As soon as the carpenter
had finished the yard, and had made some coops and other necessary
arrangements, Euphemia hired a carriage and went about the country to
buy chickens. It was not easy to find just what she wanted, and she was
gone all day.

However, she brought home an enormous Brahma cock and ten hens, which
number was pretty equally divided into her three classes. She was very
proud of her purchases, and indeed they were fine fowls. In the
evening I made some allusion to the cost of all this carpenter work,
carriage-hire, etc., besides the price of the chickens.

“O!” said she, “you don't look at the matter in the right light. You
haven't studied it up as I have. Now, just let me show you how this
thing will pay, if carried on properly.” Producing a piece of paper
covered with figures, she continued: “I begin with ten hens--I got
four common ones, because it would make it easier to calculate. After a
while, I set these ten hens on thirteen eggs each; three of these eggs
will probably spoil,--that leaves ten chickens hatched out. Of these, I
will say that half die, that will make five chickens for each hen; you
see, I leave a large margin for loss. This makes fifty chickens, and
when we add the ten hens, we have sixty fowls at the end of the first
year. Next year I set these sixty and they bring up five chickens
each,--I am sure there will be a larger proportion than this, but I want
to be safe,--and that is three hundred chickens; add the hens, and we
have three hundred and sixty at the end of the second year. In the third
year, calculating in the same safe way, we shall have twenty-one hundred
and sixty chickens; in the fourth year there will be twelve thousand
nine hundred and sixty, and at the end of the fifth year, which is as
far as I need to calculate now, we shall have sixty-four thousand and
eight hundred chickens. What do you think of that? At seventy-five cents
apiece,--a very low price,--that would be forty-eight thousand and
six hundred dollars. Now, what is the petty cost of a fence, and a few
coops, by the side of a sum like that?”

“Nothing at all,” I answered. “It is lost like a drop in the ocean. I
hate, my dear, to interfere in any way with such a splendid calculation
as that, but I would like to ask you one question.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, “I suppose you are going to say something
about the cost of feeding all this poultry. That is to come out of the
chickens supposed to die. They won't die. It is ridiculous to suppose
that each hen will bring up but five chickens. The chickens that will
live, out of those I consider as dead, will more than pay for the feed.”

“That is not what I was going to ask you, although of course it ought to
be considered. But you know you are only going to set common hens, and
you do not intend to raise any. Now, are those four hens to do all the
setting and mother-work for five years, and eventually bring up over
sixty-four thousand chickens?”

“Well, I DID make a mistake there,” she said, coloring a little. “I'll
tell you what I'll do; I'll set every one of my hens every year.”

“But all those chickens may not be hens. You have calculated that every
one of them would set as soon as it was old enough.”

She stopped a minute to think this over.

“Two heads are better than one, I see,” she said, directly. “I'll allow
that one-half of all the chickens are roosters, and that will make the
profits twenty-four thousand three hundred dollars--more than enough to
buy this place.”

“Ever so much more,” I cried. “This Rudder Grange is ours!”



CHAPTER IX. WE CAMP OUT.


My wife and I were both so fond of country life and country pursuits
that month after month passed by at our little farm in a succession of
delightful days. Time flew like a “limited express” train, and it was
September before we knew it.

I had been working very hard at the office that summer, and was glad to
think of my two weeks' vacation, which were to begin on the first
Monday of the month. I had intended spending these two weeks in
rural retirement at home, but an interview in the city with my family
physician caused me to change my mind. I told him my plan.

“Now,” said he, “if I were you, I'd do nothing of the kind. You have
been working too hard; your face shows it. You need rest and change.
Nothing will do you so much good as to camp out; that will be fifty
times better than going to any summer resort. You can take your wife
with you. I know she'll like it. I don't care where you go so that it's
a healthy spot. Get a good tent and an outfit, be off to the woods, and
forget all about business and domestic matters for a few weeks.”

This sounded splendid, and I propounded the plan to Euphemia that
evening. She thought very well of it, and was sure we could do it.
Pomona would not be afraid to remain in the house, under the protection
of Lord Edward, and she could easily attend to the cow and the chickens.
It would be a holiday for her too. Old John, the man who occasionally
worked for us, would come up sometimes and see after things. With her
customary dexterity Euphemia swept away every obstacle to the plan, and
all was settled before we went to bed.

As my wife had presumed, Pomona made no objections to remaining in
charge of the house. The scheme pleased her greatly. So far, so good. I
called that day on a friend who was in the habit of camping out to talk
to him about getting a tent and the necessary “traps” for a life in the
woods. He proved perfectly competent to furnish advice and everything
else. He offered to lend me all I needed. He had a complete outfit; had
done with them for the year, and I was perfectly welcome. Here was rare
luck. He gave me a tent, camp-stove, dishes, pots, gun, fishing-tackle,
a big canvas coat with dozens of pockets riveted on it, a canvas hat,
rods, reels, boots that came up to my hips, and about a wagon-load of
things in all. He was a real good fellow.

We laid in a stock of canned and condensed provisions, and I bought
a book on camping out so as to be well posted on the subject. On
the Saturday before the first Monday in September we would have been
entirely ready to start had we decided on the place where we were to go.

We found it very difficult to make this decision. There were thousands
of places where people went to camp out, but none of them seemed to be
the place for us. Most of them were too far away. We figured up the cost
of taking ourselves and our camp equipage to the Adirondacks, the lakes,
the trout-streams of Maine, or any of those well-known resorts, and we
found that we could not afford such trips, especially for a vacation of
but fourteen days.

On Sunday afternoon we took a little walk. Our minds were still troubled
about the spot toward which we ought to journey next day, and we needed
the soothing influences of Nature. The country to the north and west of
our little farm was very beautiful. About half a mile from the house
a modest river ran; on each side of it were grass-covered fields and
hills, and in some places there were extensive tracks of woodlands.

“Look here!” exclaimed Euphemia, stopping short in the little path that
wound along by the river bank. “Do you see this river, those woods,
those beautiful fields, with not a soul in them or anywhere near them;
and those lovely blue mountains over there?”--as she spoke she waved
her parasol in the direction of the objects indicated, and I could not
mistake them. “Now what could we want better than this?” she continued.
“Here we can fish, and do everything that we want to. I say, let us camp
here on our own river. I can take you to the very spot for the tent.
Come on!” And she was so excited about it that she fairly ran.

The spot she pointed out was one we had frequently visited in our rural
walks. It was a grassy peninsula, as I termed it, formed by a sudden
turn of a creek which, a short distance below, flowed into the river.
It was a very secluded spot. The place was approached through a
pasture-field,--we had found it by mere accident,--and where the
peninsula joined the field (we had to climb a fence just there), there
was a cluster of chestnut and hickory trees, while down near the point
stood a wide-spreading oak.

“Here, under this oak, is the place for the tent,” said Euphemia, her
face flushed, her eyes sparkling, and her dress a little torn by getting
over the fence in a hurry. “What do we want with your Adirondacks and
your Dismal Swamps? This is the spot for us!”

“Euphemia,” said I, in as composed a tone as possible, although my whole
frame was trembling with emotion, “Euphemia, I am glad I married you!”

Had it not been Sunday, we would have set up our tent that night.

Early the next morning, old John's fifteen-dollar horse drew from
our house a wagon-load of camp-fixtures. There was some difficulty in
getting the wagon over the field, and there were fences to be taken down
to allow of its passage; but we overcame all obstacles, and reached the
camp-ground without breaking so much as a teacup. Old John helped me
pitch the tent, and as neither of us understood the matter very well,
it took us some time. It was, indeed, nearly noon when old John left us,
and it may have been possible that he delayed matters a little so as to
be able to charge for a full half-day for himself and horse. Euphemia
got into the wagon to ride back with him, that she might give some
parting injunctions to Pomona.

“I'll have to stop a bit to put up the fences, ma'am,” said old John,
“or Misther Ball might make a fuss.”

“Is this Mr. Ball's land?” I asked.

“Oh yes, sir, it's Mr. Ball's land.”

“I wonder how he'll like our camping on it?” I said, thoughtfully.

“I'd 'a' thought, sir, you'd 'a' asked him that before you came,” said
old John, in a tone that seemed to indicate that he had his doubts about
Mr. Ball.

“Oh, there'll be no trouble about that,” cried Euphemia. “You can drive
me past Mr. Ball's,--it's not much out of the way,--and I'll ask him.”

“In that wagon?” said I. “Will you stop at Mr. Ball's door in that?”

“Certainly,” said she, as she arranged herself on the board which served
as a seat. “Now that our campaign has really commenced, we ought to
begin to rough it, and should not be too proud to ride even in a--in
a--”

She evidently couldn't think of any vehicle mean enough for her purpose.

“In a green-grocery cart,” I suggested.

“Yes, or in a red one. Go ahead, John.”

When Euphemia returned on foot, I had a fire in the camp-stove and the
kettle was on.

“Well,” said Euphemia, “Mr. Ball says it's all right, if we keep the
fence up. He don't want his cows to get into the creek, and I'm sure we
don't want 'em walking over us. He couldn't understand, though, why
we wanted to live out here. I explained the whole thing to him very
carefully, but it didn't seem to make much impression on him. I believe
he thinks Pomona has something the matter with her, and that we have
come to stay out here in the fresh air so as not to take it.”

“What an extremely stupid man Mr. Ball must be!” I said.

The fire did not burn very well, and while I was at work at it, Euphemia
spread a cloth upon the grass, and set forth bread and butter, cheese,
sardines, potted ham, preserves, biscuits, and a lot of other things.

We did not wait for the kettle to boil, but concluded to do without tea
or coffee, for this meal, and content ourselves with pure water. For
some reason or other, however, the creek water did not seem to be very
pure, and we did not like it a bit.

“After lunch,” said I, “we will go and look for a spring; that will be a
good way of exploring the country.”

“If we can't find one,” said Euphemia, “we shall have to go to the house
for water, for I can never drink that stuff.”

Soon after lunch we started out. We searched high and low, near and far,
for a spring, but could not find one.

At length, by merest accident, we found ourselves in the vicinity of old
John's little house. I knew he had a good well, and so we went in to get
a drink, for our ham and biscuits had made us very thirsty.

We told old John, who was digging potatoes, and was also very much
surprised to see us so soon, about our unexpected trouble in finding a
spring.

“No,” said he, very slowly, “there is no spring very near to you. Didn't
you tell your gal to bring you water?”

“No,” I replied; “we don't want her coming down to the camp. She is to
attend to the house.”

“Oh, very well,” said John; “I will bring you water, morning and
night,--good, fresh water,--from my well, for,--well, for ten cents a
day.”

“That will be nice,” said Euphemia, “and cheap, too. And then it will be
well to have John come every day; he can carry our letters.”

“I don't expect to write any letters.”

“Neither do I,” said Euphemia; “but it will be pleasant to have some
communication with the outer world.”

So we engaged old John to bring us water twice a day. I was a little
disappointed at this, for I thought that camping on the edge of a stream
settled the matter of water. But we have many things to learn in this
world.

Early in the afternoon I went out to catch some fish for supper. We
agreed to dispense with dinner, and have breakfast, lunch, and a good
solid supper.

For some time I had poor luck. There were either very few fish in the
creek, or they were not hungry.

I had been fishing an hour or more when I saw Euphemia running toward
me.

“What's the matter?” said I.

“Oh! nothing. I've just come to see how you were getting along. Haven't
you been gone an awfully long time? And are those all the fish you've
caught? What little bits of things they are! I thought people who camped
out caught big fish and lots of them?”

“That depends a good deal upon where they go,” said I.

“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Euphemia; “but I should think a stream as
big as this would have plenty of fish in it. However, if you can't
catch any, you might go up to the road and watch for Mr. Mulligan. He
sometimes comes along on Mondays.”

“I'm not going to the road to watch for any fish-man,” I replied, a
little more testily than I should have spoken. “What sort of a camping
out would that be? But we must not be talking here or I shall never get
a bite. Those fish are a little soiled from jumping about in the dust.
You might wash them off at that shallow place, while I go a little
further on and try my luck.”

I went a short distance up the creek, and threw my line into a dark,
shadowy pool, under some alders, where there certainly should be fish.
And, sure enough, in less than a minute I got a splendid bite,--not only
a bite, but a pull. I knew that I had certainly hooked a big fish! The
thing actually tugged at my line so that I was afraid the pole would
break. I did not fear for the line, for that, I knew, was strong. I
would have played the fish until he was tired, and I could pull him out
without risk to the pole, but I did not know exactly how the process
of “playing” was conducted. I was very much excited. Sometimes I gave a
jerk and a pull, and then the fish would give a jerk and a pull.

Directly I heard some one running toward me, and then I heard Euphemia
cry out:

“Give him the butt! Give him the butt!”

“Give him what?” I exclaimed, without having time even to look up at
her.

“The butt! the butt!” she cried, almost breathlessly. “I know that's
right! I read how Edward Everett Hale did it in the Adirondacks.”

“No, it wasn't Hale at all,” said I, as I jumped about the bank; “it was
Mr. Murray.”

“Well, it was one of those fishing ministers, and I know that it caught
the fish.”

“I know, I know. I read it, but I don't know how to do it.”

“Perhaps you ought to punch him with it,” said she.

“No! no!” I hurriedly replied, “I can't do anything like that. I'm going
to try to just pull him out lengthwise. You take hold of the pole and go
in shore as far as you can and I'll try and get hold of the line.”

Euphemia did as I bade her, and drew the line in so that I could reach
it. As soon as I had a firm hold of it, I pulled in, regardless of
consequences, and hauled ashore an enormous cat-fish.

“Hurrah!” I shouted, “here is a prize.”

Euphemia dropped the pole, and ran to me.

“What a horrid beast!” she exclaimed. “Throw it in again.”

“Not at all!” said I. “This is a splendid fish, if I can ever get him
off the hook. Don't come near him! If he sticks that back-fin into you,
it will poison you.”

“Then I should think it would poison us to eat him,” said she.

“No; it's only his fin.”

“I've eaten cat-fish, but I never saw one like that,” she said. “Look at
its horrible mouth! And it has whiskers like a cat!”

“Oh! you never saw one with its head on,” I said. “What I want to do is
to get this hook out.”

I had caught cat-fish before, but never one so large as this, and I was
actually afraid to take hold of it, knowing, as I did, that you must be
very careful how you clutch a fish of the kind. I finally concluded to
carry it home as it was, and then I could decapitate it, and take out
the hook at my leisure. So back to camp we went, Euphemia picking up the
little fish as we passed, for she did not think it right to catch fish
and not eat them. They made her hands smell, it is true; but she did not
mind that when we were camping.

I prepared the big fish (and I had a desperate time getting the skin
off), while my wife, who is one of the daintiest cooks in the world,
made the fire in the stove, and got ready the rest of the supper. She
fried the fish, because I told her that was the way cat-fish ought to be
cooked, although she said that it seemed very strange to her to camp out
for the sake of one's health, and then to eat fried food.

But that fish was splendid! The very smell of it made us hungry.
Everything was good, and when supper was over and the dishes washed, I
lighted my pipe and we sat down under a tree to enjoy the evening.

The sun had set behind the distant ridge; a delightful twilight was
gently subduing every color of the scene; the night insects were
beginning to hum and chirp, and a fire that I had made under a tree
blazed up gayly, and threw little flakes of light into the shadows under
the shrubbery.

“Now isn't this better than being cooped up in a narrow, constricted
house?” said I.

“Ever so much better!” said Euphemia. “Now we know what Nature is. We
are sitting right down in her lap, and she is cuddling us up. Isn't that
sky lovely? Oh! I think this is perfectly splendid,” said she, making a
little dab at her face,--“if it wasn't for the mosquitoes.”

“They ARE bad,” I said. “I thought my pipe would keep them off, but it
don't. There must be plenty of them down at that creek.”

“Down there!” exclaimed Euphemia. “Why there are thousands of them here!
I never saw anything like it. They're getting worse every minute.”

“I'll tell you what we must do,” I exclaimed, jumping up. “We must make
a smudge.”

“What's that? do you rub it on yourself?” asked Euphemia, anxiously.

“No, it's only a great smoke. Come, let us gather up dry leaves and make
a smoldering fire of them.”

We managed to get up a very fair smudge, and we stood to the leeward of
it, until Euphemia began to cough and sneeze, as if her head would
come off. With tears running from her eyes, she declared that she would
rather go and be eaten alive, than stay in that smoke.

“Perhaps we were too near it,” said I.

“That may be,” she answered, “but I have had enough smoke. Why didn't
I think of it before? I brought two veils! We can put these over our
faces, and wear gloves.”

She was always full of expedients.

Veiled and gloved, we bade defiance to the mosquitoes, and we sat
and talked for half an hour or more. I made a little hole in my veil,
through which I put the mouth-piece of my pipe.

When it became really dark, I lighted the lantern, and we prepared for a
well-earned night's rest. The tent was spacious and comfortable, and we
each had a nice little cot-bed.

“Are you going to leave the front-door open all night?” said Euphemia,
as I came in after a final round to see that all was right.

“I should hardly call this canvas-flap a front-door,” I said, “but I
think it would be better to leave it open; otherwise we should smother.
You need not be afraid. I shall keep my gun here by my bedside, and if
any one offers to come in, I'll bring him to a full stop quick enough.”

“Yes, if you are awake. But I suppose we ought not to be afraid of
burglars here. People in tents never are. So you needn't shut it.”

It was awfully quiet and dark and lonely, out there by that creek, when
the light had been put out, and we had gone to bed. For some reason I
could not go to sleep. After I had been lying awake for an hour or two,
Euphemia spoke:

“Are you awake?” said she, in a low voice, as if she were afraid of
disturbing the people in the next room.

“Yes,” said I. “How long have you been awake?”

“I haven't been asleep.”

“Neither have I.”

“Suppose we light the lantern,” said she. “Don't you think it would be
pleasanter?”

“It might be,” I replied; “but it would draw myriads of mosquitoes.
I wish I had brought a mosquito-net and a clock. It seems so lonesome
without the ticking. Good-night! We ought to have a long sleep, if we do
much tramping about to-morrow.”

In about half an hour more, just as I was beginning to be a little
sleepy, she said:

“Where is that gun?”

“Here by me,” I answered.

“Well, if a man should come in, try and be sure to put it up close to
him before you fire. In a little tent like this, the shot might scatter
everywhere, if you're not careful.”

“All right,” I said. “Good-night!”

“There's one thing we never thought of!” she presently exclaimed.

“What's that,” said I.

“Snakes,” said she.

“Well, don't let's think of them. We must try and get a little sleep.”

“Dear knows! I've been trying hard enough,” she said, plaintively, and
all was quiet again.

We succeeded this time in going to sleep, and it was broad daylight
before we awoke.

That morning, old John came with our water before breakfast was ready.
He also brought us some milk, as he thought we would want it. We
considered this a good idea, and agreed with him to bring us a quart a
day.

“Don't you want some wegetables?” said he. “I've got some nice corn and
some tomatoes, and I could bring you cabbage and peas.”

We had hardly expected to have fresh vegetables every day, but there
seemed to be no reason why old John should not bring them, as he had to
come every day with the water and milk. So we arranged that he should
furnish us daily with a few of the products of his garden.

“I could go to the butcher's and get you a steak or some chops, if you'd
let me know in the morning,” said he, intent on the profits of further
commissions.

But this was going too far. We remembered we were camping out, and
declined to have meat from the butcher.

John had not been gone more than ten minutes before we saw Mr. Ball
approaching.

“Oh, I hope he isn't going to say we can't stay!” exclaimed Euphemia.

“How d'ye do?” said Mr. Ball, shaking hands with us. “Did you stick it
out all night?”

“Oh yes, indeed,” I replied, “and expect to stick it out for a many more
nights if you don't object to our occupying your land.”

“No objection in the world,” said he; “but it seems a little queer for
people who have a good house to be living out here in the fields in a
tent, now, don't it?”

“Oh, but you see,” said I, and I went on and explained the whole thing
to him,--the advice of the doctor, the discussion about the proper place
to go to, and the good reasons for fixing on this spot.

“Ye-es,” said he, “that's all very well, no doubt. But how's the girl?”

“What girl?” I asked.

“Your girl. The hired girl you left at the house.”

“Oh, she's all right,” said I; “she's always well.”

“Well,” said Mr. Ball, slowly turning on his heel, “if you say so, I
suppose she is. But you're going up to the house to-day to see about
her, aren't you?”

“Oh, no,” said Euphemia. “We don't intend to go near the house until our
camping is over.”

“Just so,--just so,” said Mr. Ball; “I expected as much. But look here,
don't you think it would be well for me to ask Dr. Ames to stop in and
see how she is gettin' along? I dare say you've fixed everything for
her, but that would be safer, you know. He's coming this morning to
vaccinate my baby, and he might stop there, just as well as not, after
he has left my house.”

Euphemia and I could see no necessity for this proposed visit of the
doctor, but we could not well object to it, and so Mr. Ball said he
would be sure and send him.

After our visitor had gone, the significance of his remarks flashed on
me. He still thought that Pomona was sick with something catching, and
that we were afraid to stay in the house with her. But I said nothing
about this to Euphemia. It would only worry her, and our vacation was to
be a season of unalloyed delight.



CHAPTER X. WET BLANKETS.


We certainly enjoyed our second day in camp. All the morning, and a
great part of the afternoon, we “explored.” We fastened up the tent
as well as we could, and then, I with my gun, and Euphemia with the
fishing-pole, we started up the creek. We did not go very far, for it
would not do to leave the tent too long. I did not shoot anything, but
Euphemia caught two or three nice little fish, and we enjoyed the sport
exceedingly.

Soon after we returned in the afternoon, and while we were getting
things in order for supper, we had a call from two of our neighbors,
Captain Atkinson and wife. The captain greeted us hilariously.

“Hello!” he cried. “Why, this is gay. Who would ever have thought of
a domestic couple like you going on such a lark as this. We just heard
about it from old John, and we came down to see what you are up to.
You've got everything very nice. I think I'd like this myself. Why, you
might have a rifle-range out here. You could cut down those bushes on
the other side of the creek, and put up your target over there on that
hill. Then you could lie down here on the grass and bang away all day.
If you'll do that, I'll come down and practice with you. How long are
you going to keep it up?”

I told him that we expected to spend my two weeks' vacation here.

“Not if it rains, my boy,” said he. “I know what it is to camp out in
the rain.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Atkinson had been with Euphemia examining the tent, and
our equipage generally.

“It would be very nice for a day's picnic,” she said; “but I wouldn't
want to stay out-of-doors all night.”

And then, addressing me, she asked:

“Do you have to breathe the fresh air all the time, night as well as
day? I expect that is a very good prescription, but I would not like to
have to follow it myself.”

“If the fresh air is what you must have,” said the captain, “you might
have got all you wanted of that without taking the trouble to come out
here. You could have sat out on your back porch night and day for the
whole two weeks, and breathed all the fresh air that any man could
need.”

“Yes,” said I, “and I might have gone down cellar and put my head in the
cold-air box of the furnace. But there wouldn't have been much fun in
that.”

“There are a good many things that there's no fun in,” said the captain.
“Do you cook your own meals, or have them sent from the house?”

“Cook them ourselves, of course,” said Euphemia. “We are going to have
supper now. Won't you wait and take some?”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Atkinson, “but we must go.”

“Yes, we must be going,” said the captain. “Good-bye. If it rains I'll
come down after you with an umbrella.”

“You need not trouble yourself about that,” said I. “We shall rough it
out, rain or shine.”

“I'd stay here now,” said Euphemia, when they had gone, “if it rained
pitch.”

“You mean pitchforks,” I suggested.

“Yes, anything,” she answered.

“Well, I don't know about the pitchforks,” I said, looking over the
creek at the sky; “but am very much afraid that it is going to rain
rain-water to-morrow. But that won't drive us home, will it?”

“No, indeed!” said she. “We're prepared for it. But I wish they'd staid
at home.”

Sure enough, it commenced to rain that night, and we had showers all
the next day. We staid in camp during the morning, and I smoked and
we played checkers, and had a very cosy time, with a wood fire burning
under a tree near by. We kept up this fire, not to dry the air, but to
make things look comfortable. In the afternoon I dressed myself up in
water-proof coat, boots and hat, and went out fishing. I went down to
the water and fished along the banks for an hour, but caught nothing of
any consequence. This was a great disappointment, for we had expected to
live on fresh fish for a great part of the time while we were camping.
With plenty of fish, we could do without meat very well.

We talked the matter over on my return, and we agreed that as it seemed
impossible to depend upon a supply of fish, from the waters about our
camp, it would be better to let old John bring fresh meat from the
butcher, and as neither of us liked crackers, we also agreed that he
should bring bread.

Our greatest trouble, that evening, was to make a fire. The wood, of
which there was a good deal lying about under the trees, was now all wet
and would not burn. However, we managed to get up a fire in the stove,
but I did not know what we were going to do in the morning. We should
have stored away some wood under shelter.

We set our little camp-table in the tent, and we had scarcely finished
our supper, when a very heavy rain set in, accompanied by a violent
wind. The canvas at one end of our tent must have been badly fastened,
for it was blown in, and in an instant our beds were deluged. I rushed
out to fasten up the canvas, and got drenched almost to the skin, and
although Euphemia put on her waterproof cloak as soon as she could, she
was pretty wet, for the rain seemed to dash right through the tent.

This gust of wind did not last long, and the rain soon settled down into
a steady drizzle, but we were in a sad plight. It was after nine o'clock
before we had put things into tolerable order.

“We can't sleep in those beds,” said Euphemia.

“They're as wet as sop, and we shall have to go up to the house and get
something to spread over them. I don't want to do it, but we mustn't
catch our deaths of cold.”

There was nothing to be said against this, and we prepared to start out.
I would have gone by myself, but Euphemia would not consent to be left
alone. It was still raining, though not very hard, and I carried an
umbrella and a lantern. Climbing fences at night with a wife, a lantern,
and an umbrella to take care of, is not very agreeable, but we managed
to reach the house, although once or twice we had an argument in regard
to the path, which seemed to be very different at night from what it was
in the day-time.

Lord Edward came bounding to the gate to meet us, and I am happy to say
that he knew me at once, and wagged his tail in a very sociable way.

I had the key of a side-door in my pocket, for we had thought it wise to
give ourselves command of this door, and so we let ourselves in without
ringing or waking Pomona.

All was quiet within, and we went upstairs with the lantern. Everything
seemed clean and in order, and it is impossible to convey any idea of
the element of comfort which seemed to pervade the house, as we quietly
made our way upstairs, in our wet boots and heavy, damp clothes.

The articles we wanted were in a closet, and while I was making a bundle
of them, Euphemia went to look for Pomona. She soon returned, walking
softly.

“She's sound asleep,” said she, “and I didn't think there was any need
of waking her. We'll send word by John that we've been here. And oh!
you can't imagine how snug and happy she did look, lying there in her
comfortable bed, in that nice, airy room. I'll tell you what it is, if
it wasn't for the neighbors, and especially the Atkinsons, I wouldn't go
back one step.”

“Well,” said I, “I don't know that I care so particularly about it,
myself. But I suppose I couldn't stay here and leave all Thompson's
things out there to take care of themselves.”

“Oh no!” said Euphemia. “And we're not going to back down. Are you
ready?”

On our way down-stairs we had to pass the partly open door of our own
room. I could not help holding up the lantern to look in. There was the
bed, with its fair white covering and its smooth, soft pillows; there
were the easy-chairs, the pretty curtains, the neat and cheerful carpet,
the bureau, with Euphemia's work-basket on it; there was the little
table with the book that we had been reading together, turned face
downward upon it; there were my slippers; there was--

“Come!” said Euphemia, “I can't bear to look in there. It's like a dead
child.”

And so we hurried out into the night and the rain. We stopped at the
wood-shed and got an armful of dry kindling, which Euphemia was obliged
to carry, as I had the bundle of bed-clothing, the umbrella, and the
lantern.

Lord Edward gave a short, peculiar bark as we shut the gate behind us,
but whether it was meant as a fond farewell, or a hoot of derision, I
cannot say.

We found everything as we left it at the camp, and we made our beds
apparently dry. But I did not sleep well. I could not help thinking that
it was not safe to sleep in a bed with a substratum of wet mattress, and
I worried Euphemia a little by asking her several times if she felt the
dampness striking through.

To our great delight, the next day was fine and clear, and I thought I
would like, better than anything else, to take Euphemia in a boat up the
river and spend the day rowing about, or resting in shady places on the
shore.

But what could we do about the tent? It would be impossible to go away
and leave that, with its contents, for a whole day.

When old John came with our water, milk, bread, and a basket of
vegetables, we told him of our desired excursion, and the difficulty in
the way. This good man, who always had a keen scent for any advantage
to himself, warmly praised the boating plan, and volunteered to send his
wife and two of his younger children to stay with the tent while we were
away.

The old woman, he said, could do her sewing here as well as anywhere,
and she would stay all day for fifty cents.

This plan pleased us, and we sent for Mrs. Old John, who came with three
of her children,--all too young to leave behind, she said,--and took
charge of the camp.

Our day proved to be as delightful as we had anticipated, and when we
returned, hungry and tired, we were perfectly charmed to find that Mrs.
Old John had our supper ready for us.

She charged a quarter, extra, for this service, and we did not begrudge
it to her, though we declined her offer to come every day and cook and
keep the place in order.

“However,” said Euphemia, on second thoughts, “you may come on Saturday
and clean up generally.”

The next day, which was Friday, I went out in the morning with the
gun. As yet I had shot nothing, for I had seen no birds about the camp,
which, without breaking the State laws, I thought I could kill, and so I
started off up the river-road.

I saw no game, but after I had walked about a mile, I met a man in a
wagon.

“Hello,” said he, pulling up; “you'd better be careful how you go
popping around here on the public roads, frightening horses.”

As I had not yet fired a single shot, I thought this was a very impudent
speech, and I think so still.

“You had better wait until I begin to pop,” said I, “before you make
such a fuss about it.”

“No,” said he, “I'd rather make the fuss before you begin. My horse is
skittish,” and he drove off.

This man annoyed me; but as I did not, of course, wish to frighten
horses, I left the road and made my way back to the tent over some very
rough fields. It was a poor day for birds, and I did not get a shot.

“What a foolish man!” said Euphemia, when I told her the above incident,
“to talk that way when you stood there with a gun in your hand. You
might have raked his wagon, fore and aft.”

That afternoon, as Euphemia and I were sitting under a tree by the
tent, we were very much surprised to see Pomona come walking down the
peninsula.

I was annoyed and provoked at this. We had given Pomona positive orders
not to leave the place, under any pretense, while we were gone. If
necessary to send for anything, she could go to the fence, back of the
barn, and scream across a small field to some of the numerous members
of old John's family. Under this arrangement, I felt that the house was
perfectly safe.

Before she could reach us, I called out:

“Why did you leave the house, Pomona? Don't you know you should never
come away and leave the house empty? I thought I had made you understand
that.”

“It isn't empty,” said Pomona, in an entirely unruffled tone. “Your old
boarder is there, with his wife and child.”

Euphemia and I looked at each other in dismay.

“They came early this afternoon,” continued Pomona, “by the 1:14 train,
and walked up, he carrying the child.”

“It can't be,” cried Euphemia. “Their child's married.”

“It must have married very young, then,” said Pomona, “for it isn't over
four years old now.”

“Oh!” said Euphemia, “I know! It's his grandchild.”

“Grandchild!” repeated Pomona, with her countenance more expressive of
emotion than I had ever yet seen it.

“Yes,” said Euphemia; “but how long are they going to stay? Where did
you tell them we were?”

“They didn't say how long they was goin' to stay,” answered Pomona. “I
told them you had gone to be with some friends in the country, and that
I didn't know whether you'd be home to-night or not.”

“How could you tell them such a falsehood?” cried Euphemia.

“That was no falsehood,” said Pomona; “it was true as truth. If you're
not your own friends, I don't know who is. And I wasn't a-goin' to tell
the boarder where you was till I found out whether you wanted me to do
it or not. And so I left 'em and run over to old John's, and then down
here.”

It was impossible to find fault with the excellent management of Pomona.

“What were they doing?” asked Euphemia.

“I opened the parlor, and she was in there with the child,--putting it
to sleep on the sofa, I think. The boarder was out in the yard, tryin'
to teach Lord Edward some tricks.”

“He had better look out!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, the dog's chained and growlin' fearful! What am I to do with 'em?”

This was a difficult point to decide. If we went to see them, we might
as well break up our camp, for we could not tell when we should be able
to come back to it.

We discussed the matter very anxiously, and finally concluded that
under the circumstances, and considering what Pomona had said about
our whereabouts, it would be well for us to stay where we were and for
Pomona to take charge of the visitors. If they returned to the city that
evening, she was to give them a good supper before they went, sending
John to the store for what was needed. If they stayed all night, she
could get breakfast for them.

“We can write,” said Euphemia, “and invite them to come and spend some
days with us, when we are at home and everything is all right. I want
dreadfully to see that child, but I don't see how I can do it now.”

“No,” said I. “They're sure to stay all night if we go up to the house,
and then I should have to have the tent and things hauled away, for I
couldn't leave them here.”

“The fact is,” said Euphemia, “if we were miles away, in the woods
of Maine, we couldn't leave our camp to see anybody. And this is
practically the same.”

“Certainly,” said I; and so Pomona went away to her new charge.



CHAPTER XI. THE BOARDER'S VISIT.


For the rest of the afternoon, and indeed far into the night, our
conversation consisted almost entirely of conjectures regarding the
probable condition of things at the house. We both thought we had done
right, but we felt badly about it. It was not hospitable, to be sure;
but then I should have no other holiday until next year, and our friends
could come at any time to see us.

The next morning old John brought a note from Pomona. It was written
with pencil on a small piece of paper torn from the margin of a
newspaper, and contained the words, “Here yit.”

“So you've got company,” said old John, with a smile. “That's a queer
gal of yourn. She says I mustn't tell 'em you're here. As if I'd tell
'em!”

We knew well enough that old John was not at all likely to do anything
that would cut off the nice little revenue he was making out of our
camp, and so we felt no concern on that score.

But we were very anxious for further news, and we told old John to go to
the house about ten o'clock and ask Pomona to send us another note.

We waited, in a very disturbed condition of mind, until nearly eleven
o'clock, when old John came with a verbal message from Pomona:

“She says she's a-comin' herself as soon as she can get a chance to slip
off.”

This was not pleasant news. It filled our minds with a confused mass of
probabilities, and it made us feel mean. How contemptible it seemed to
be a party to this concealment and in league with a servant-girl who has
to “slip off!”

Before long, Pomona appeared, quite out of breath.

“In all my life,” said she, “I never see people like them two. I thought
I was never goin' to get away.”

“Are they there yet?” cried Euphemia.

“How long are they going to stay?”

“Dear knows!” replied Pomona. “Their valise came up by express last
night.”

“Oh, we'll have to go up to the house,” said Euphemia. “It won't do to
stay away any longer.”

“Well,” said Pomona, fanning herself with her apron, “if you know'd all
I know, I don't think you'd think so.”

“What do you mean?” said Euphemia.

“Well, ma'am, they've just settled down and taken possession of the
whole place. He says to me that he know'd you'd both want them to make
themselves at home, just as if you was there, and they thought they'd
better do it. He asked me did I think you would be home by Monday, and
I said I didn't know, but I guessed you would. So says he to his wife,
'Won't that be a jolly lark? We'll just keep house for them here till
they come. And he says he would go down to the store and order some
things, if there wasn't enough in the house, and he asked her to see
what would be needed, which she did, and he's gone down for 'em now. And
she says that, as it was Saturday, she'd see that the house was all put
to rights; and after breakfast she set me to sweepin'; and it's only by
way of her dustin' the parlor and givin' me the little girl to take for
a walk that I got off at all.”

“But what have you done with the child?” exclaimed Euphemia.

“Oh, I left her at old Johnses.”

“And so you think they're pleased with having the house to themselves?”
 I said.

“Pleased, sir?” replied Pomona; “they're tickled to death.”

“But how do you like having strangers telling you what to do?” asked
Euphemia.

“Oh, well,” said Pomona, “he's no stranger, and she's real pleasant, and
if it gives you a good camp out, I don't mind.”

Euphemia and I looked at each other. Here was true allegiance. We would
remember this.

Pomona now hurried off, and we seriously discussed the matter, and soon
came to the conclusion that while it might be the truest hospitality to
let our friends stay at our house for a day or two and enjoy themselves,
still it would not do for us to allow ourselves to be governed by a too
delicate sentimentality. We must go home and act our part of host and
hostess.

Mrs. Old John had been at the camp ever since breakfast-time, giving the
place a Saturday cleaning. What she had found to occupy her for so
long a time I could not imagine, but in her efforts to put in a full
half-day's work, I have no doubt she scrubbed some of the trees. We had
been so fully occupied with our own affairs that we had paid very little
attention to her, but she had probably heard pretty much all that had
been said.

At noon we paid her (giving her, at her suggestion, something extra in
lieu of the midday meal, which she did not stay to take), and told her
to send her husband, with his wagon, as soon as possible, as we intended
to break up our encampment. We determined that we would pack everything
in John's wagon, and let him take the load to his house, and keep
it there until Monday, when I would have the tent and accompaniments
expressed to their owner. We would go home and join our friends. It
would not be necessary to say where we had been.

It was hard for us to break up our camp. In many respects we had enjoyed
the novel experience, and we had fully expected, during the next week,
to make up for all our short-comings and mistakes. It seemed like losing
all our labor and expenditure, to break up now, but there was no help
for it. Our place was at home.

We did not wish to invite our friends to the camp. They would certainly
have come had they known we were there, but we had no accommodations for
them, neither had we any desire for even transient visitors. Besides,
we both thought that we would prefer that our ex-boarder and his wife
should not know that we were encamped on that little peninsula.

We set to work to pack up and get ready for moving, but the afternoon
passed away without bringing old John. Between five and six o'clock
along came his oldest boy, with a bucket of water.

“I'm to go back after the milk,” he said.

“Hold up!” I cried. “Where is your father and his wagon? We've been
waiting for him for hours.”

“The horse is si---- I mean he's gone to Ballville for oats.”

“And why didn't he send and tell me?” I asked.

“There wasn't nobody to send,” answered the boy.

“You are not telling the truth,” exclaimed Euphemia; “there is always
some one to send, in a family like yours.”

To this the boy made no answer, but again said that he would go after
the milk.

“We want you to bring no milk,” I cried, now quite angry. “I want you to
go down to the station, and tell the driver of the express-wagon to come
here immediately. Do you understand? Immediately.”

The boy declared he understood, and started off quite willingly. We
did not prefer to have the express-wagon, for it was too public a
conveyance, and, besides, old John knew exactly how to do what was
required. But we need not have troubled ourselves. The express-wagon did
not come.

When it became dark, we saw that we could not leave that night. Even if
a wagon did come, it would not be safe to drive over the fields in
the darkness. And we could not go away and leave the camp-equipage. I
proposed that Euphemia should go up to the house, while I remained in
camp. But she declined. We would keep together, whatever happened, she
said.

We unpacked our cooking-utensils and provisions, and had supper. There
was no milk for our coffee, but we did not care. The evening did
not pass gayly. We were annoyed by the conduct of old John and the
express-boy, though, perhaps, it was not their fault. I had given them
no notice that I should need them.

And we were greatly troubled at the continuance of the secrecy and
subterfuge which now had become really necessary, if we did not wish to
hurt our friends' feelings.

The first thing that I thought of, when I opened my eyes in the morning,
was the fact that we would have to stay there all day, for we could not
move on Sunday.

But Euphemia did not agree with me. After breakfast (we found that the
water and the milk had been brought very early, before we were up) she
stated that she did not intend to be treated in this way. She was going
up to old John's house herself; and away she went.

In less than half an hour, she returned, followed by old John and his
wife, both looking much as if they had been whipped.

“These people,” said she, “have entered into a conspiracy against us. I
have questioned them thoroughly, and have made them answer me. The horse
was at home yesterday, and the boy did not go after the express-wagon.
They thought that if they could keep us here, until our company had
gone, we would stay as long as we originally intended, and they would
continue to make money out of us. But they are mistaken. We are going
home immediately.”

At this point I could not help thinking that Euphemia might have
consulted me in regard to her determination, but she was very much in
earnest, and I would not have any discussion before these people.

“Now, listen!” said Euphemia, addressing the down-cast couple, “we are
going home, and you two are to stay here all this day and to-night, and
take care of these things. You can't work to-day, and you can shut up
your house, and bring your whole family here if you choose. We will pay
you for the service,--although you do not deserve a cent,--and we will
leave enough here for you to eat. You must bring your own sheets and
pillowcases, and stay here until we see you on Monday morning.”

Old John and his wife agreed to this plan with the greatest alacrity,
apparently well pleased to get off so easily; and, having locked up the
smaller articles of camp-furniture, we filled a valise with our personal
baggage and started off home.

Our house and grounds never looked prettier than they did that morning,
as we stood at the gate. Lord Edward barked a welcome from his shed, and
before we reached the door, Pomona came running out, her face radiant.

“I'm awful glad to see you back,” she said; “though I'd never have said
so while you was in camp.”

I patted the dog and looked into the garden. Everything was growing
splendidly. Euphemia rushed to the chicken-yard. It was in first-rate
order, and there were two broods of little yellow puffy chicks.

Down on her knees went my wife, to pick up the little creatures, one
by one, press their downy bodies to her cheek, and call them
tootsy-wootsies, and away went I to the barn, followed by Pomona, and
soon afterward by Euphemia.

The cow was all right.

“I've been making butter,” said Pomona, “though it don't look exactly
like it ought to, yet, and the skim-milk I didn't know what to do with,
so I gave it to old John. He came for it every day, and was real mad
once because I had given a lot of it to the dog, and couldn't let him
have but a pint.”

“He ought to have been mad,” said I to Euphemia, as we walked up to the
house. “He got ten cents a quart for that milk.”

We laughed, and didn't care. We were too glad to be at home.

“But where are our friends?” I asked Pomona. We had actually forgotten
them.

“Oh! they're gone out for a walk,” said she. “They started off right
after breakfast.”

We were not sorry for this. It would be so much nicer to see our dear
home again when there was nobody there but ourselves. In-doors we
rushed. Our absence had been like rain on a garden. Everything now
seemed fresher and brighter and more delightful. We went from room to
room, and seemed to appreciate better than ever what a charming home we
had.

We were so full of the delights of our return that we forgot all about
the Sunday dinner and our guests, but Pomona, whom my wife was training
to be an excellent cook, did not forget, and Euphemia was summoned to a
consultation in the kitchen.

Dinner was late; but our guests were later. We waited as long as the
state of the provisions and our appetites would permit, and then we sat
down to the table and began to eat slowly. But they did not come. We
finished our meal, and they were still absent. We now became quite
anxious, and I proposed to Euphemia that we should go and look for them.

We started out, and our steps naturally turned toward the river. An
unpleasant thought began to crowd itself into my mind, and perhaps the
same thing happened to Euphemia, for, without saying anything to each
other, we both turned toward the path that led to the peninsula. We
crossed the field, climbed the fence, and there, in front of the tent
sat our old boarder splitting sticks with the camp-hatchet.

“Hurrah!” he cried, springing to his feet when he saw us. “How glad I am
to see you back! When did you return? Isn't this splendid?”

“What?” I said, as we shook hands.

“Why this,” he cried, pointing to the tent. “Don't you see? We're
camping out.”

“You are?” I exclaimed, looking around for his wife, while Euphemia
stood motionless, actually unable to make a remark.

“Certainly we are. It's the rarest bit of luck. My wife and Adele will
be here directly. They've gone to look for water-cresses. But I must
tell you how I came to make this magnificent find. We started out for a
walk this morning, and we happened to hit on this place, and here we saw
this gorgeous tent with nobody near but a little tow-headed boy.”

“Only a boy?” cried Euphemia.

“Yes, a young shaver of about nine or ten. I asked him what he was doing
here, and he told me that this tent belonged to a gentleman who had gone
away, and that he was here to watch it until he came back. Then I asked
him how long the owner would probably be away, and he said he supposed
for a day or two. Then a splendid idea struck me. I offered the boy
a dollar to let me take his place: I knew that any sensible man would
rather have me in charge of his tent, than a young codger like that. The
boy agreed as quick as lightning, and I paid him and sent him off. You
see how little he was to be trusted! The owner of this tent will be
under the greatest obligations to me. Just look at it!” he cried. “Beds,
table, stove,--everything anybody could want. I've camped out lots of
times, but never had such a tent as this. I intended coming up this
afternoon after my valise, and to tell your girl where we are. But here
is my wife and little Adele.”

In the midst of the salutations and the mutual surprise, Euphemia cried:

“But you don't expect to camp out, now? You are coming back to our
house?”

“You see,” said the ex-boarder, “we should never have thought of doing
anything so rude, had we supposed you would have returned so soon. But
your girl gave us to understand that you would not be back for days, and
so we felt free to go at any time; and I did not hesitate to make this
arrangement. And now that I have really taken the responsibility of the
tent and fixtures on myself, I don't think it would be right to go away
and leave the place, especially as I don't know where to find that boy.
The owner will be back in a day or two, and I would like to explain
matters to him and give up the property in good order into his hands.
And, to tell the truth, we both adore camping-out, and we may never have
such a chance again. We can live here splendidly. I went out to forage
this morning, and found an old fellow living near by who sold me a lot
of provisions--even some coffee and sugar--and he's to bring us some
milk. We're going to have supper in about an hour; won't you stay and
take a camp-meal with us? It will be a novelty for you, at any rate.”

We declined this invitation, as we had so lately dined. I looked at
Euphemia with a question in my eye. She understood me, and gently shook
her head. It would be a shame to make any explanations which might put
an end to this bit of camp-life, which evidently was so eagerly enjoyed
by our old friend. But we insisted that they should come up to the
house and see us, and they agreed to dine with us the next evening. On
Tuesday, they must return to the city.

“Now, this is what I call real hospitality,” said the ex-boarder, warmly
grasping my hand. I could not help agreeing with him.

As we walked home, I happened to look back and saw old John going over
the fields toward the camp, carrying a little tin-pail and a water
bucket.

The next day, toward evening, a storm set in, and at the hour fixed for
our dinner, the rain was pouring down in such torrents that we did not
expect our guests. After dinner the rain ceased, and as we supposed that
they might not have made any preparations for a meal, Euphemia packed up
some dinner for them in a basket, and I took it down to the camp.

They were glad to see me, and said they had a splendid time all day.
They were up before sunrise, and had explored, tramped, boated, and I
don't know what else.

My basket was very acceptable, and I would have stayed awhile with them,
but as they were obliged to eat in the tent, there was no place for me
to sit, it being too wet outside, and so I soon came away.

We were in doubt whether or not to tell our friends the true history
of the camp. I thought that it was not right to keep up the deception,
while Euphemia declared that if they were sensitive people, they would
feel very badly at having broken up our plans by their visit, and then
having appropriated our camp to themselves. She thought it would be the
part of magnanimity to say nothing about it.

I could not help seeing a good deal of force in her arguments, although
I wished very much to set the thing straight, and we discussed the
matter again as we walked down to the camp, after breakfast next
morning.

There we found old John sitting on a stump. He said nothing, but handed
me a note written in lead-pencil on a card. It was from our ex-boarder,
and informed me that early that morning he had found that there was a
tug lying in the river, which would soon start for the city. He also
found that he could get passage on her for his party, and as this was
such a splendid chance to go home without the bother of getting up to
the station, he had just bundled his family and his valise on board, and
was very sorry they did not have time to come up and bid us good-bye.
The tent he left in charge of a very respectable man, from whom he had
had supplies.

That morning I had the camp-equipage packed up and expressed to its
owner. We did not care to camp out any more that season, but thought it
would be better to spend the rest of my vacation at the sea-shore.

Our ex-boarder wrote to us that he and his wife were anxious that we
should return their visit during my holidays; but as we did not see
exactly how we could return a visit of the kind, we did not try to do
it.



CHAPTER XII. LORD EDWARD AND THE TREE-MAN.


It was winter at Rudder Grange. The season was the same at other places,
but that fact did not particularly interest Euphemia and myself. It was
winter with us, and we were ready for it. That was the great point,
and it made us proud to think that we had not been taken unawares,
notwithstanding the many things that were to be thought of on a little
farm like ours.

It is true that we had always been prepared for winter, wherever we had
lived; but this was a different case. In other days it did not matter
much whether we were ready or not; but now our house, our cow, our
poultry, and indeed ourselves, might have suffered,--there is no way
of finding out exactly how much,--if we had not made all possible
preparations for the coming of cold weather.

But there was a great deal yet to be thought of and planned out,
although we were ready for winter. The next thing to think of was
spring.

We laid out the farm. We decided where we would have wheat, corn,
potatoes, and oats. We would have a man by the day to sow and reap. The
intermediate processes I thought I could attend to myself.

Everything was talked over, ciphered over, and freely discussed by
my wife and myself, except one matter, which I planned and worked out
alone, doing most of the necessary calculations at the office, so as not
to excite Euphemia's curiosity.

I had determined to buy a horse. This would be one of the most important
events of our married life, and it demanded a great deal of thought,
which I gave it.

The horse was chosen for me by a friend. He was an excellent beast (the
horse), excelling, as my friend told me, in muscle and wit. Nothing
better than this could be said about a horse. He was a sorrel animal,
quite handsome, gentle enough for Euphemia to drive, and not too
high-minded to do a little farm-work, if necessary. He was exactly the
animal I needed.

The carriage was not quite such a success. The horse having cost a good
deal more than I expected to pay, I found that I could only afford a
second-hand carriage. I bought a good, serviceable vehicle, which would
hold four persons, if necessary, and there was room enough to pack all
sorts of parcels and baskets. It was with great satisfaction that
I contemplated this feature of the carriage, which was a rather
rusty-looking affair, although sound and strong enough. The harness was
new, and set off the horse admirably.

On the afternoon when my purchases were completed, I did not come home
by the train. I drove home in my own carriage, drawn by my own horse!
The ten miles' drive was over a smooth road, and the sorrel traveled
splendidly. If I had been a line of kings a mile long, all in their
chariots of state, with gold and silver, and outriders, and music, and
banners waving in the wind, I could not have been prouder than when I
drew up in front of my house.

There was a wagon-gate at one side of the front fence which had never
been used except by the men who brought coal, and I got out and opened
this, very quietly, so as not to attract the attention of Euphemia. It
was earlier than I usually returned, and she would not be expecting
me. I was then about to lead the horse up a somewhat grass-grown
carriage-way to the front door, but I reflected that Euphemia might be
looking out of some of the windows and I had better drive up. So I got
in and drove very slowly to the door.

However, she heard the unaccustomed noise of wheels, and looked out of
the parlor window. She did not see me, but immediately came around
to the door. I hurried out of the carriage so quickly that, not being
familiar with the steps, I barely escaped tripping.

When she opened the front door she was surprised to see me standing by
the horse.

“Have you hired a carriage?” she cried. “Are we going to ride?”

“My dear,” said I, as I took her by the hand, “we are going to ride. But
I have not hired a carriage. I have bought one. Do you see this horse?
He is ours--our own horse.”

If you could have seen the face that was turned up to me,--all you other
men in the world,--you would have torn your hair in despair.

Afterward she went around and around that horse; she patted his smooth
sides; she looked, with admiration, at his strong, well-formed legs; she
stroked his head; she smoothed his mane; she was brimful of joy.

When I had brought the horse some water in a bucket--and what a pleasure
it was to water one's own horse!--Euphemia rushed into the house and got
her hat and cloak, and we took a little drive.

I doubt if any horse ever drew two happier people. Euphemia said but
little about the carriage. That was a necessary adjunct, and it was good
enough for the present. But the horse! How nobly and with what vigor
he pulled us up the hills and how carefully and strongly he held the
carriage back as we went down! How easily he trotted over the level
road, caring nothing for the ten miles he had gone that afternoon! What
a sensation of power it gave us to think that all that strength and
speed and endurance was ours, that it would go where we wished, that it
would wait for us as long as we chose, that it was at our service day
and night, that it was a horse, and we owned it!

When we returned, Pomona saw us drive in,--she had not known of our
ride,--and when she heard the news she was as wild with proud delight as
anybody. She wanted to unharness him, but this I could not allow. We did
not wish to be selfish, but after she had seen and heard what we thought
was enough for her, we were obliged to send her back to the kitchen for
the sake of the dinner.

Then we unharnessed him. I say we, for Euphemia stood by and I explained
everything, for some day, she said, she might want to do it herself.
Then I led him into the stable. How nobly he trod, and how finely his
hoofs sounded on the stable floor!

There was hay in the mow and I had brought a bag of oats under the seat
of the carriage.

“Isn't it just delightful,” said Euphemia, “that we haven't any man?
If we had a man he would take the horse at the door, and we should be
deprived of all this. It wouldn't be half like owning a horse.”

In the morning I drove down to the station, Euphemia by my side. She
drove back and Old John came up and attended to the horse. This he was
to do, for the present, for a small stipend. In the afternoon Euphemia
came down after me. How I enjoyed those rides! Before this I had thought
it ever so much more pleasant and healthful to walk to and from the
station than to ride, but then I did not own a horse. At night I
attended to everything, Euphemia generally following me about the stable
with a lantern. When the days grew longer we would have delightful rides
after dinner, and even now we planned to have early breakfasts, and go
to the station by the longest possible way.

One day, in the following spring, I was riding home from the station
with Euphemia,--we seldom took pleasure-drives now, we were so busy
on the place,--and as we reached the house I heard the dog barking
savagely. He was loose in the little orchard by the side of the house.
As I drove in, Pomona came running to the carriage.

“Man up the tree!” she shouted.

I helped Euphemia out, left the horse standing by the door, and ran to
the dog, followed by my wife and Pomona. Sure enough, there was a man
up the tree, and Lord Edward was doing his best to get at him, springing
wildly at the tree and fairly shaking with rage.

I looked up at the man, he was a thoroughbred tramp, burly, dirty,
generally unkempt, but, unlike most tramps, he looked very much
frightened. His position, on a high crotch of an apple-tree, was not
altogether comfortable, and although, for the present, it was safe, the
fellow seemed to have a wavering faith in the strength of apple-tree
branches, and the moment he saw me, he earnestly besought me to take
that dog away, and let him down.

I made no answer, but turning to Pomona, I asked her what this all
meant.

“Why, sir, you see,” said she, “I was in the kitchen bakin' pies, and
this fellow must have got over the fence at the side of the house, for
the dog didn't see him, and the first thing I know'd he was stickin' his
head in the window, and he asked me to give him somethin' to eat. And
when I said I'd see in a minute if there was anything for him, he says
to me, 'Gim me a piece of one of them pies,'--pies I'd just baked and
was settin' to cool on the kitchen table! 'No, sir,' says I, 'I'm
not goin' to cut one of them pies for you, or any one like you.' 'All
right!' says he. 'I'll come in and help myself.' He must have known
there was no man about, and, comin' the way he did, he hadn't seen the
dog. So he come round to the kitchen door, but I shot out before he got
there and unchained Lord Edward. I guess he saw the dog, when he got to
the door, and at any rate he heard the chain clankin', and he didn't go
in, but just put for the gate. But Lord Edward was after him so quick
that he hadn't no time to go to no gates. It was all he could do to
scoot up this tree, and if he'd been a millionth part of a minute later
he'd 'a' been in another world by this time.”

The man, who had not attempted to interrupt Pomona's speech, now began
again to implore me to let him down, while Euphemia looked pitifully at
him, and was about, I think, to intercede with me in his favor, but my
attention was drawn off from her, by the strange conduct of the dog.
Believing, I suppose, that he might leave the tramp for a moment, now
that I had arrived, he had dashed away to another tree, where he was
barking furiously, standing on his hind legs and clawing at the trunk.

“What's the matter over there?” I asked.

“Oh, that's the other fellow,” said Pomona. “He's no harm.” And then,
as the tramp made a movement as if he would try to come down, and make
a rush for safety, during the absence of the dog, she called out, “Here,
boy! here, boy!” and in an instant Lord Edward was again raging at his
post, at the foot of the apple-tree.

I was grievously puzzled at all this, and walked over to the other tree,
followed, as before, by Euphemia and Pomona.

“This one,” said the latter, “is a tree-man--”

“I should think so,” said I, as I caught sight of a person in gray
trowsers standing among the branches of a cherry-tree not very far from
the kitchen door. The tree was not a large one, and the branches were
not strong enough to allow him to sit down on them, although they
supported him well enough, as he stood close to the trunk just out of
reach of Lord Edward.

“This is a very unpleasant position, sir,” said he, when I reached
the tree. “I simply came into your yard, on a matter of business, and
finding that raging beast attacking a person in a tree, I had barely
time to get up into this tree myself, before he dashed at me. Luckily
I was out of his reach; but I very much fear I have lost some of my
property.”

“No, he hasn't,” said Pomona. “It was a big book he dropped. I picked
it up and took it into the house. It's full of pictures of pears and
peaches and flowers. I've been lookin' at it. That's how I knew what he
was. And there was no call for his gittin' up a tree. Lord Edward never
would have gone after him if he hadn't run as if he had guilt on his
soul.”

“I suppose, then,” said I, addressing the individual in the cherry-tree,
“that you came here to sell me some trees.”

“Yes, sir,” said he quickly, “trees, shrubs, vines,
evergreens,--everything suitable for a gentleman's country villa. I
can sell you something quite remarkable, sir, in the way of
cherry-trees,--French ones, just imported; bear fruit three times
the size of anything that could be produced on a tree like this. And
pears--fruit of the finest flavor and enormous size--”

“Yes,” said Pomona. “I seen them in the book. But they must grow on a
ground-vine. No tree couldn't hold such pears as them.”

Here Euphemia reproved Pomona's forwardness, and I invited the
tree-agent to get down out of the tree.

“Thank you,” said he; “but not while that dog is loose. If you will
kindly chain him up, I will get my book, and show you specimens of some
of the finest small fruit in the world, all imported from the first
nurseries of Europe--the Red-gold Amber Muscat grape,--the--”

“Oh, please let him down!” said Euphemia, her eyes beginning to sparkle.

I slowly walked toward the tramp-tree, revolving various matters in my
mind. We had not spent much money on the place during the winter, and
we now had a small sum which we intended to use for the advantage of the
farm, but had not yet decided what to do with it. It behooved me to be
careful.

I told Pomona to run and get me the dog-chain, and I stood under the
tree, listening, as well as I could, to the tree-agent talking to
Euphemia, and paying no attention to the impassioned entreaties of the
tramp in the crotch above me. When the chain was brought, I hooked one
end of it in Lord Edward's collar, and then I took a firm grasp of the
other. Telling Pomona to bring the tree-agent's book from the house, I
called to that individual to get down from his tree. He promptly obeyed,
and taking the book from Pomona, began to show the pictures to Euphemia.

“You had better hurry, sir,” I called out. “I can't hold this dog very
long.” And, indeed, Lord Edward had made a run toward the agent, which
jerked me very forcibly in his direction. But a movement by the tramp
had quickly brought the dog back to his more desired victim.

“If you will just tie up that dog, sir,” said the agent, “and come this
way, I would like to show you the Meltinagua pear,--dissolves in the
mouth like snow, sir; trees will bear next year.”

“Oh, come look at the Royal Sparkling Ruby grape!” cried Euphemia. “It
glows in the sun like a gem.”

“Yes,” said the agent, “and fills the air with fragrance during the
whole month of September--”

“I tell you,” I shouted, “I can't hold this dog another minute! The
chain is cutting the skin off my hands. Run, sir, run! I'm going to let
go!”

“Run! run!” cried Pomona. “Fly for your life!”

The agent now began to be frightened, and shut up his book.

“If you only could see the plates, sir, I'm sure--”

“Are you ready?” I cried, as the dog, excited by Pomona's wild shouts,
made a bolt in his direction.

“Good-day, if I must--” said the agent, as he hurried to the gate. But
there he stopped.

“There is nothing, sir,” he said, “that would so improve your place as
a row of the Spitzenberg Sweet-scented Balsam fir along this fence. I'll
sell you three-year-old trees--”

“He's loose!” I shouted, as I dropped the chain.

In a second the agent was on the other side of the gate. Lord Edward
made a dash toward him; but, stopping suddenly, flew back to the tree of
the tramp.

“If you should conclude, sir,” said the tree-agent, looking over the
fence, “to have a row of those firs along here--”

“My good sir,” said I, “there is no row of firs there now, and the fence
is not very high. My dog, as you see, is very much excited and I cannot
answer for the consequences if he takes it into his head to jump over.”

The tree-agent turned and walked slowly away.

“Now, look-a-here,” cried the tramp from the tree, in the voice of a
very ill-used person, “ain't you goin' to fasten up that dog, and let me
git down?”

I walked up close to the tree and addressed him.

“No,” said I, “I am not. When a man comes to my place, bullies a young
girl who was about to relieve his hunger, and then boldly determines
to enter my house and help himself to my property, I don't propose to
fasten up any dog that may happen to be after him. If I had another dog,
I'd let him loose, and give this faithful beast a rest. You can do as
you please. You can come down and have it out with the dog, or you can
stay up there, until I have had my dinner. Then I will drive down to the
village and bring up the constable, and deliver you into his hands. We
want no such fellows as you about.”

With that, I unhooked the chain from Lord Edward, and walked off to put
up the horse. The man shouted after me, but I paid no attention. I did
not feel in a good humor with him.

Euphemia was much disturbed by the various occurrences of the afternoon.
She was sorry for the man in the tree; she was sorry that the agent for
the Royal Ruby grape had been obliged to go away; and I had a good deal
of trouble during dinner to make her see things in the proper light. But
I succeeded at last.

I did not hurry through dinner, and when we had finished I went to my
work at the barn. Tramps are not generally pressed for time, and Pomona
had been told to give our captive something to eat.

I was just locking the door of the carriage-house, when Pomona came
running to me to tell me that the tramp wanted to see me about something
very important--just a minute, he said. I put the key in my pocket and
walked over to the tree. It was now almost dark, but I could see that
the dog, the tramp, and the tree still kept their respective places.

“Look-a-here,” said the individual in the crotch, “you don't know how
dreadful oneasy these limbs gits after you've been settin up here
as long as I have. And I don't want to have nuthin to do with no
constables. I'll tell you what I'll do if you'll chain up that dog, and
let me go, I'll fix things so that you'll not be 

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