IV

_The soft feet of the rain on the shingles_

When the articles I had chosen from the apartment arrived Westbury

carted them up the hill and we entered into possession of our new

estate--not of the house (some painters had possessed themselves of

that), but of the wood-house and barn. The barn was a big, airy place,

suitable for a summer dormitory. The wood-house was not big, but it was

empty and had been set in order. It had a stove-pipe hole, and Westbury

contributed a stove--the first one ever made, he said, or, at any rate,

the first ever used in that neighborhood. It was a good stove, too,

solidly cast, almost unbreakable. Its legs were gone, which was no great

matter, for we set it up on bricks. With a box for a table, we had a

proper living-room, handy and complete.

Not entirely complete, either--the old stove had no pipe. But just then

it happened that the groceryman came along, making one of his two trips

a week. He would deliver during the afternoon, he said, and could bring

along some pipe for us. He did that, but it was a kind of pipe that

didn't fit--not very well.

If there is anything that would make a man forget the Great War it

would be putting up stove-pipe. It seems, somehow, to overshadow all

other misfortunes. Some persons might have enjoyed matching up those

units, but I did not. I have no gift that way. Elizabeth said she would

help, but she didn't seem to use good judgment--not the best. When I was

making a painfully careful adjustment she was possessed to push a

little, or something, and make my efforts futile. Once when the box I

was standing on tipped over and I came down, with the pipe resolved into

joints, she seemed to think it amusing. At times, too, our tribe of

precious ones came racing through. By the time the job was finished

Elizabeth and I were treating each other rather coolly--that is to say,

politely. But this was temporary. The soft purr of a fresh fire, the

pleasant singing of a kettle, set us to laughing at our troubles. Man

Westbury came driving up with some green corn, lettuce, and beans from

the garden; also a chicken and a pie hot from Lady Westbury's oven.

Those blessed neighbors! How good they were to us! In less than no time

the corn and beans were in the pot and I was dressing the lettuce. We

had brought down some of the old chairs from the attic, and the tribe

assembled with a whoop to place them. A little more, and we were seated.

The Hope, aged seven, who had a gift for such things, asked a blessing,

and we had begun life in the new home. I wonder why tears are trying to

come as I write about it. There was never a better meal, or a jollier

one--never a happier, healthier family.

A shower came up and settled into a gentle rain. The barn, where we were

going to sleep, was a good step away, so that when the time came we put

on our rubbers, took our umbrellas and a lantern, and set out for bed.

There was nothing very wonderful about all this, of course; it only

seemed wonderful to us because it was all so new. The Pride and the Hope

declared they were always going to sleep in the barn, and when we got

inside the big, lofty place, and in the gloom overheard heard the soft

feet of the rain on the shingles, I, too, had a deep-down wish that

there was nothing in the world, but this--that the pleasant night and

soothing patter might never cease.

Truth obliges me to confess that on that first night our bed was not an

entire success. For convenience and economy we had laid it in a

continuous stretch on the floor, with some hay beneath. There being not

enough mattresses for all, I had built an extension of hay for the elder

members of the family. It was the best hay, but I had used it too

sparingly. I suppose I had not realized how, with adjustment, it would

pack and separate. I know it had hardened considerably by the time I had

made one or two turns as a necessary preparation for sleep. I remarked

each time how delightful it all was, to which Elizabeth agreed, though

she had the courage presently to venture that she didn't think it quite

as soft as one of Lady Westbury's feather beds. The Pride observed that

there seemed to be a certain horsey smell that did not entirely please

her, though the Joy, who was probably imagining herself hitched in one

of the stalls, declared that she liked that best of anything. As for the

Hope--clear of conscience and worn with the riot of the day--she had

plunged without a moment's hesitation into the blessed business of

sleep. It engaged us all, at length, and we must have become adapted by

morning, for when we were all awake and lay in the dim light, listening

to the quiet music of the continuing rain, there was no voice of

discontent. Elizabeth thought it likely that she was considerably

bruised, but, as she made no complaint later, this was perhaps a false

alarm.

[Illustration]

When I crept out and pushed open the wide front doors, I found that the

brook had risen and was slipping across the grass of the lower yard. It

had a tempting look, and the rain held all but ceased. I picked my way

down to it, and, hanging my garments on a limb, enjoyed the richest

luxury in the world--that of bathing in the open air, sheltered only by

the sky and the greenery, in one's own brook and one's own door-yard.

Interlacing boughs, birds singing, the cool, slipping water--no

millionaire could have more. I was heir to the best the ages had to

give.

V

_Elizabeth's ideas were not poetic_

We were busy with our new plans. We decided to shingle the roof, which

showed an inclination to leak; also the sides, which in numerous places

besides the windows admitted samples of the outdoors. Such things did

not matter so much in summer-time, but New England in winter is

different. Then the roof and door-yard are piled with snow, the

northwest wind seeks out the tiniest crevice in one's armor. How did

those long-ago people manage? Their walls were not sheeted, and they

did not know the use of building-paper. Our old wide siding had been

laid directly on the bare timbers, the studding; every crevice under the

windows, every crack in the plaster, was a short circuit with zero. We

decided to take off the antique siding, cut out the bad places, and

relay it flat, as sheeting. Over it we would lay building-paper, and on

top of this, good substantial shingles, laid wide to the weather in the

old-fashioned way.

It hurt us to think of covering up that fine original siding--priceless

stuff, a foot wide and of the softest, straightest-grained white pine,

cut from large trees such as no longer grow--but we did not know what

else to do with it. It was a wonderful antique, but we could not afford

to keep a pile of lumber just for exhibition purposes. I said it ought

to be in a museum, and I had some thought of offering it to the

Metropolitan, at a modest valuation, next time I went to town. Elizabeth

discouraged this idea. She suggested that I have it made up into Brook

Ridge souvenirs--little trays and paper-cutters--a wagon-load or two,

then start out and peddle them. The scheme dazzled me for a moment, but

I resisted it. So in the end it became just sheeting. I did pick out one

fine example--a piece with some of the original red paint still on

it--and said I meant to have it framed, but in the course of the work,

at a moment when my back was turned, the carpenter got hold of it, so I

fear there is no exposed scrap of it to-day. It is all there under the

shingles, and will still be there for other shingles when those are

gone. The nails that held it were made by hand, every one of them, and I

did save some of those, for they were really beautiful. But think of the

patient labor of making them. I suppose a skilled and rapid workman

could turn out as many as twenty of those nails in an hour. A detail

like that gives one a sort of measurement of those deliberate days.

We did not always agree as to our improvements. I don t think our

arguments ever became heated--one might characterize them as, well,

ardent. If Elizabeth thought my ideas sometimes wild, not to say crazy,

I don t remember that she ever put it just in that way. If I thought

hers inclined to be prosaic and earthy, I was careful to be out of range

and hearing before I expressed myself. I remember once suggesting that

we do our cooking and heating entirely in the old way--that is to say,

using the fireplaces and the Dutch oven--and was pained to find that

Elizabeth was contemplating a furnace and a kitchen range. She asked me

rather pointedly who I thought was going to get in wood enough to keep

four fireplaces running, and if I fancied the idea of going to bed in

the big north room up-stairs with the thermometer shrinking below zero.

It was still August at the moment, and the prospect was not so

disturbing. I said that hardy races always did those things, that the

old builders of this house had probably not minded it at all, and just

see to what great old ages they had lived. I said that as a child I had

even done it myself.

"So did I," said Elizabeth; "that is why I am not going to do it now."

She walked out with quite a firm step, and I did not pursue the matter.

I might have done so, but I had a vision, just then, of a boy who had

lived on the Western prairies, in a big box of a house, and had gone to

bed in a room that was about the temperature of the snow-drifted yard. I

could see him madly flinging off a few outer garments, making a spring

into a bed that was like a frozen pond, lying there in a bunch, getting

tolerably warm at last, but all night long fearful of moving an inch

because of his frigid boundaries. As for the matter of wood, well, I had

carried that, too, cords of it, for a fireplace that had devoured it

relentlessly and given nothing adequate in return. I recalled that in

cold weather I had never known what it was to be warm on both sides at

once, that I had scorched my face while my back was freezing, then

turned, like a chicken on a spit, to bake the other side. Without doubt

I had grown used to it, so used to it that it had never occurred to me

that in cold weather any one really could be warm on both sides at once;

also, perhaps, it had hardened me, still--

Elizabeth's ideas were not poetic; they did not express art for art's

sake; anybody could see that; but, after all, there would be

days--January days--when a fireplace alone, however beautiful as an

ornament, would not make enough impression on the family circle, and

scarcely any at all on the up-stairs. Coming up rather quietly somewhat

later, she found me sitting under the big maple, surreptitiously

studying a range and furnace catalogue borrowed of Westbury. We decided

on Acme Hummers and I gave the order to the postman next morning.