II
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.