_Westbury dropped in_
So came the deeps of winter--January in New England. With the Pride and
the Hope back at school, Elizabeth and I, with the Joy, shut away from
most of the sounds and strivings of men, looked out on the heaping
drifts and gathered about blazing logs, piled sometimes almost to the
chimney throat.
It was our refreshment and exercise to bring in the logs. We were told
that in a former day they had been dragged in by a horse, who drew them
right up to the wide stone hearth. But we did not use Lord Beaconsfield
for this work. For one thing, he would have been too big to get through
the door; besides, we were strong, and liked the job. We had two pairs
of ice-tongs, and we would put on our rubber boots, and take the tongs,
and go out into the snow, and fasten to a log--one at each end--and drag
it across Captain Ben's iron door-sill, and lift it in and swing it
across the stout andirons with a skill that improved with each day's
practice. They were good, lusty sticks--some of them nearly two feet
through. These were the back-logs, and they would last two or three
days, buried in the ashes, breaking at last into a mass of splendid
coals.
In New England one builds a fire scientifically, if he expects to keep
warm by it. There must be a fore-stick and a back-stick, and a pyramid
of other sticks, with proper draught below and flame outlets above. And
he must not spare fuel--not if he expects heat. Westbury dropped in one
afternoon just when we had completed a masterpiece in fire-building. He
went up to warm his hands and regarded the blazing heap of hickory with
critical appraisal.
"That fire cost you two dollars," he remarked, probably recalling the
number of days it had taken Old Pop and Sam to cut and cord the big
hickory across the brook.
"It's worth it," I said. "I've paid many a two dollars for luxuries that
weren't worth five minutes of this."
Westbury dropped into a comfortable chair, took out his knife, and
picked up a piece of pine kindling.
"You think this beats city life?" he observed, whittling slowly.
"Well, that depends on what you want. If you like noise and action, the
city's the place. We once lived in a flat where there was a piano at
one end of the hall and two phonographs at the other. Then there was a
man across the air-shaft who practised on the clarinet, and a
professional singer up-stairs. Besides this, when the season was right,
we had a hand-organ concert every few minutes on the street. When
everything was going at once it was quite a combination. The trolley in
front and the Elevated railway behind helped out, too, besides the
automobiles, and the newsboys and more or less babies that were trying
to do their part. Some people would be lonesome without those things, I
suppose."
Westbury whittled reflectively.
"I like to be where it's busy," he commented, "but I guess a fellow
could get tired of too much of it. It's pretty nice to live where you
can look out on the snow and the woods, and where you can hear it rain,
and in the spring wake up in the night and listen to the frogs sing."
Westbury's eye ranged about the room, taking in the pictures and
bric-à-brac and the bookshelves along the wall. "I wonder what Captain
Ben Meeker would think to see his old kitchen turned into a library,"
he went on, thoughtfully. "Not many books in his day, I guess; maybe one
or two on the parlor table, mostly about religion. They were pretty
strong on religion, back in that time, though Captain Ben, I guess,
didn't go in on it as heavy as his wife. Captain Ben was more for
hunting, and horses, and dogs, and the man that could cut the most grass
in a day. The story goes that when Eli Brayton, the shoemaker, wanted to
marry Molly Meeker, Captain Ben wouldn't give her to him because he said
Eli hadn't proved himself a man yet. Brayton was boarding in the family
and working in the little shop that used to stand across the road. Aunt
Sarah Meeker, Captain Ben's wife, wanted the shoemaker in the family
because he was religious; but Captain Ben said, 'No, sir, he's got to
prove himself a man before he can have Molly.' Well, one day Eli Brayton
saw a fox up in the timber, and came down to the house and told Captain
Ben about it. 'Let me have your gun,' he said, 'and I'll go up and get
that chap that's been killing your chickens lately.' 'All right,' says
Captain Ben, 'but you won't get him.' Eli didn't say anything, but took
the old musket and slipped up there, and by and by they heard a shot and
pretty soon he came down the hill with Mr. Fox over his shoulder. They
went out on the step to meet him, and he threw the fox down in front of
Molly Meeker. 'There's some fur for you,' he said, 'and I guess he won't
catch any more chickens.' Captain Ben went up to Eli and slapped him on
the shoulder. 'Now you've proved yourself a man,' he says, 'and you can
have Molly.' That was my wife's grandmother. She was an only child and
the Meekers and the Braytons lived here together. Eli Brayton grew to be
quite a character himself. When they came around to him to collect money
for the church he'd contribute some of his unpaid shoe accounts. He knew
the people that owed them would pay the church, because they'd be afraid
not to. Old Deacon Timothy Todd used to do the collecting. He had a
high-keyed voice and no front teeth, and always chewed as he talked.
He'd pull out the bill and shake it at the man that owed it and say: 'A
debt to the church is registered above. Not to pay it is a mortal sin.
To perish in sin is to be burned with brimstone and eaten by the worm
that dieth not.' Before Deacon Todd got through that sinner was ready to
come across."
Westbury in childhood had seen Deacon Timothy Todd and could imitate his
speech and manner. He enjoyed doing it as much as we enjoyed hearing
him.
"Deacon Todd had two boys," he went on, "Jim and Tim, and he used to
say, 'My Jim is a good boy, but Tim proved himself a bad one when he
slapped his mother with an eel-skin.' Deacon Todd married a second time.
He lent some money to a woman to set up a business in Westport, and a
little while after his wife died he went down to collect it. Somebody
met him on the road and asked him where he was going. 'Well,' he said,
'I'm just going down to Westport to collect a little money I loaned a
young woman, and I'll bring back the money or the young woman, one of
the two,' and he did. He was back with her next day. Timothy Todd was a
great old chap. When the Civil War broke out he didn't want to go. He
was getting along pretty well, then--forty or so--and had already lost
two of his front teeth and claimed he couldn't bite off the ca'tridges.
They used to have to bite off the paper ends of them for muzzle-loading
guns. Then the draft came and he was scared up for fear they'd get him.
They didn't, though, but they got about all the others that were left,
and Deacon Todd went down to see them off. When the train came and he
saw them all get on, and the train starting, he forgot all about not
wanting to go, and jumped on with them, and went. 'I saw all my friends
was goin',' he said, 'an' th'd be nobody left in the country but me. "I
reckon I can bite them ca'tridges off with my eye-teeth, if I really
want to do it," I says, an' I was on the train an' half-way to Danbury
before I recollected that Mrs. Todd had told me to bring home a dime's
wuth o' coffee an' a pound o' sugar. I didn't get back with 'em fer two
years, an' then I come in limpin' with a bullet in my left hind leg.
"Here's that pound o' coffee and dime's wuth o' sugar," I says. "I
waited fer 'em to git cheaper."'"
Westbury's visits did much to brighten up the somber days, while our
blazing hearth and the sturdy little furnace down-stairs kept us warm and
cozy. Looking out on a landscape that was like a Christmas card, and
remembering the drabble and jangle of the town, we were not sorry to be
among the clean white hills.