CHAPTER XI. A STRIKING CONTRAST.

They walked along some time, each busied with the reflections excited by the previous conversation.

"Mort," said Rich at length, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to sleep in a poor place to-night."

"We've slept together in David Johnson's barn, in Peleg Curtis's fish-house, on a pile of wet menhaden nets, and in the woods on Great French. Didn't we make a fire and warm the ledge on the north-west side of Hope Island, sweep off the coals, and lie down—in November too?"

"Yes; but when folks go to visit their friends, they expect a little better treatment than when camping out. Don't you remember when we used to walk down to Maquoit of an afternoon in June, just before anything had faded, and it was high water, how beautiful everything looked? the sharp line of color, where the points fringed with the bright green of the thatch parted the blue water, the bolder outlines of the gray[Pg 135] rocks, and the trees reflected in the calm water; and yet go down there two or three days after, at low tide, and there would be only a hundred acres of steaming flats, the shores and the grass on their edge strown with kelp, dead clams, horse-shoe crabs, dead limbs of trees, dead fish, chips, and rotten eel grass; no water to be seen nearer than a mile and a half!"

"Indeed I do; and the contrast was so great that one must be possessed of a most devout spirit not to arraign the order of nature, and wish it was high water all the time."

"I'm sure I can't imagine what should put Maquoit Bay in my head to-night, unless it was meeting with you, and thinking of old times; but it seems to set forth my condition exactly. Six weeks ago it was high water with us, a spring tide, up over everything, clear to the grass ground, filling every cove and creek, the mouths of the brooks kissing the birch roots on the edge of the cliffs, and lifting up the strawberry leaves. Now it is dead low water, bare flats, angry sky, and to me the voyage of life seems 'bound in shallows and in miseries.'"

"That's one side, old chum" (putting his arms around Rich's neck), "but the tide only ebbs to flow again. The farther it runs off, and the more it drains out at one time, the higher it flows the next."

It was the first manifestation of anything like[Pg 136] depression that Morton had noticed in his friend. Rich, however, shook it off, as the bird shakes the dew from its plumage, saying, with a smile,—

"You are right, Mort; and that's the way I look at it generally; but I can't yet visit the old home, and come away again, without stirring up something that had better be kept down; especially when the cat puts her head in my bosom, as she did to-night, and says, 'Do stay here with me, I am so lonesome.'"

Morton, as they came in sight of the house now occupied by the Richardsons, was most forcibly struck with the contrast between this abode and the one they had just left. Their present habitation stood in a tan-yard; indeed it had, in the days of his poverty, been the residence of the owner of the tan-yard, who being pinched for room, had crowded his house into the smallest possible limits.

It was placed very near the line of the street, leaving barely space for a single doorstep, which was a pasture stone. The tan-pits at one side approached within two feet of the cellar wall. On the other was a currier's shop, leaving just space enough between the two buildings for a narrow cart road. Beneath the back windows of this shop were old oil barrels and heaps of curriers' shavings, stewing and simmering in the sun.

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Directly behind the house a garden spot twenty-five feet by thirty was fenced out. It had not been ploughed for some years; the Richardsons did not care to cultivate it, as their stay was but temporary, and it was overgrown with weeds, and strewn with old boots and shoes, broken pottery, pots and pans that had outlived their usefulness, heaps of ashes, and the bleaching bones of cats that had come to an untimely end.

Abutting on this lot was a large shed, open on the side facing the dwelling in which was the "beam" house, where the green and bloody hides were received and "fleshed." Here were heaps of horns, and the pith or marrow that comes out of them when they taint. The roof of this shed was covered with glue skins, that is, the trimmings of the hides saved to make glue, spread to dry, and which attracted swarms of green flies; add to this a stagnant mill pond that supplied water for the pits, and to propel a bark mill, fences, and walls hung with sides of leather spread out to dry, and smeared, or, in technical language, dubbed, with tallow and rancid fish oil, and you have a faithful description of the surroundings of this delightful abode. But aside from actual experience, imagination cannot conceive or tongue describe the combined odors furnished by these various substances when operated upon by sun and wind.

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The house was in perfect keeping with the site upon which it stood. The walls were covered with shingles, two courses of which had rotted away near the foundations, in consequence of banking up the walls with earth; part of the top of the chimney had fallen off, and lay on the roof that in places was bare of shingles and covered with moss.

Upon entering the house, a door on the left opened into the kitchen, the plastering of which was the color of milk and molasses, and appeared to have been flung on, and then clawed in by cats, affording in the furrows lodgments for smoke and secure harbors of refuge for flies. At the back of this room was a small bedroom, finished in the same manner, with the exception of being sealed to the height of a chair, and the wood work painted with a color intended, probably, for red; it, however, looked very much as though a hog had been killed on it. In this apartment the parents slept. Another door, on the right, admitted to an unfinished room, with a rough floor. Here were Rich's lathe and tool chest, a pair of cart wheels finished, except smoothing up, and a wheelbarrow that only required ironing.

"This is my workshop," said Rich. "My mechanical genius, that used to expend itself on flower-pots and vases, in turning canes and cups, tops and nine-pins, balls and drum-sticks, is now[Pg 139] directed by stern necessity, into a more useful channel; and, believe me, when I have made a pair of wheels, got my money for them, and bought provisions for the family, I feel a great deal better satisfied with myself than I used to after spending two or three days making something that was a mere plaything, or at best only served the purpose of ornament."

At each end of the garret was a window, and there two bedrooms were made, with rough board partitions, one of which was occupied by the two daughters, the other by Rich. Here was his library, that was quite extensive, his father having indulged his fondness for books, among which was a German edition of the classics.

The room was small, and the roof of a low pitch. The book-cases, writing-desk, bureau, and chairs all occupied so much of the room that the bedstead was necessarily pushed far under the eaves in order to afford space enough in the middle to move around and stand upright.

"It is quite convenient," said Rich, as they entered, "for you can reach everything without getting out of your chair."

"And then to consider," replied Morton, in the same vein, "that the most celebrated philosophers and poets have meditated and sung in garrets."

"True," said Rich; "but I suspect it would be far more pleasant to meditate about than it[Pg 140] will to occupy it come next dog days. Now, Mort, you must sleep on the front side, for the shingle nails come through the boards of the roof, and if you should forget, and jump up on end, they'd stick right into your skull."

"They are not long enough to go through."

"Probably not through a skull so thick as yours, but they would draw blood, and might give you a headache."

When they awoke in the morning, Rich said, "Mort, I can spend the whole forenoon with you, but in the afternoon they will need me at the shop. In the evening we can be together again."

When breakfast was over, Morton said, "Rich, what are your plans for the future? Have you decided in respect to a profession? for I don't suppose you really intend to pass your life at the anvil, after spending so many years and so much money getting an education."

"It would not be so much of a sacrifice as you may suppose, and if I had not been through college, I would do so, for I love to work iron; it comes as natural as water to a duck. Do you go up and look over my books while I split up some oven wood, and then I'll tell you."

"I'll help you split the wood."

"Come on."

"Rich, who was that old lady at the breakfast table?"

"Aunt Blunt, mother's aunt. Didn't they [Pg 141]introduce you? She came last night, before we came home, and went to bed."

"I thought your mother's name was Lucy; but this morning the old lady called her Mary."

"Mother's name is Mary L.; Mary Lucy. The Lucy is for my great aunt, and she always calls her so, but we call her Lucy. One of my sisters is named Mary B., after mother and the Blunts."