Chapter II. THE COTTAGE ON AMITY STREET
The little shingled cottage stood back from the street, in a deeper yard than most of its neighbors. It was built the year Nan was born, so the roses, the honeysuckle, and the clematis had become of stalwart growth and quite shaded the front and side porches.
The front steps had begun to sag a little; but Mr. Sherwood had blocked them up. The front fence had got out of alignment, and the same able mechanic had righted it and set the necessary new posts.
The trim of the little cottage on Amity Street had been painted twice within Nan's remembrance; each time her father had done the work in his spare time.
Now, with snow on the ground and frozen turf peeping out from under the half-melted and yellowed drifts, the Sherwood cottage was not so attractive as in summer. Yet it was a cozy looking house with the early lamplight shining through the kitchen window and across the porch as Nan approached, swinging her schoolbooks.
Papa Sherwood called it, with that funny little quirk in the corner of his mouth, “a dwelling in amity, more precious than jewels or fine gold.”
And it was just that. Nan had had experience enough in the houses of her school friends to know that none of them were homes like her own.
All was amity, all was harmony, in the little shingled cottage on this short by-street of Tillbury.
It was no grave and solemn place where the natural outburst of childish spirits was frowned upon, or one had to sit “stiff and starched” upon stools of penitence.