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.
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!”
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!”