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.