Take It from Dad

by George Griswold Livermore

Jack and I were boys together in Epping, and used to do considerable business trading rabbits and whatever live stock we happened to own.

Jack left Epping when he was seventeen, went to work for a stock broker in Boston, and made barrels of money, incidently marrying a Philadelphia girl who had callouses on her thumbs from cutting coupons.

Jack has always been my broker and handled all my finances, but for a good many years we hadn't seen much of each other socially, so when he suggested your Ma and I go out that afternoon to his cottage in Lenox, and stay over Sunday, I was glad to accept, thinking we'd have a chance to talk over old times. I went back to the hotel and told your Ma, and then promptly forgot all about it, for there was an old fellow living in Pittsfield who'd just invented an extension last that looked good to me.

I spent most of the afternoon in the old inventor's shop and when I returned to the hotel along about five, I found a high-wheeled cart outside which Jack had sent over to get us, and your Ma having duck fits for fear I wouldn't show up.

She said she'd put everything in my suit case I'd need, so I only slicked up a bit and we were off.

It was a mighty pretty ride over to Lenox, but when we turned in at the gate to Jack's cottage, I thought our driver had made a mistake, for the place looked bigger than the Boston Public Library, and about as homelike as a New York apartment house.

A frozen-faced individual in brass-buttoned red vest and a waiter's uniform met us at the front door, and when I told him I was William Soule of Lynn he led the way into the hall and disappeared.

We hung around for some time. Then a maid came along and showed us to our rooms. It was a mighty nice room I had, with pink silk wall coverings and gray wicker furniture, and with a tiled bath off it, that gleamed like a Pullman porter's smile. I looked the bed over carefully, decided it was comfortable, and then thought I'd go out in the yard and walk around. As I stepped on to the piazza, a haughty-faced woman disentangled herself from a group of ladies who were playing cards, and came towards me murmuring, Mr. Soule?

I pleaded guilty, and she extended two cold fingers, that had about as much cordiality in them as a dead smelt, and said she was pleased to meet me. From her tone, I judged she wasn't going to lead any cheers over the fact, so I bowed politely and marched on out to the stables in front of which I saw a boy exercising a mighty likely-looking colt. Jack had some fine horses, and a wonderful herd of Jerseys. His head groom was a real human sort of chap, who knew more about cattle than any man I ever met, and we were having a real good visit together when a gong like a fire alarm started somewhere in the house.

I made the piazza in three jumps, tore through the hall and up the stairs determined to get your Ma out before the house burned down, for what I'd seen of the Lenox Fire Department, sitting in his shirt sleeves before the door of the hose house as we drove over from Pittsfield, hadn't inspired me with any great amount of confidence in his ability to put out anything bigger than a bonfire.