“Guessing about everything, son. Just when I thought I was nearing port, where I ought to be at my age, I find myself all at sea.”
“Same with me, Aunt Polly. We’re part of the whole upheaval, and take it from me, some of us are going to find ourselves high and dry by and by and some of us will go under. We don’t understand it; we can’t; but we’ve got to try to––and that’s the very devil. Aunt Polly, I’ve been on the Point, talking to some of the folks down there––there is a 111 fellow called Twombley, odd cuss. He told me he’s tried to earn his living, but found people too particular.”
“Earn his living, huh!” Polly tried to look indignant. “He’s a scamp, and old Doctor Rivers was the ruination of him. The old doctor used to quote Scripture in a scandalous way. He said since we have the poor always with us, it is up to us to have a place for them where they can be comfortable. Terrible doctrine, I say, but that was what the old doctor kept the Point for and it was after Twombley tried to earn his living––the scamp!” Northrup saw that he had diverted Aunt Polly and gladly let her talk on.
“Doctor had an old horse as was just pleading to be put an end to, but the doctor couldn’t make his mind up to it and Twombley finally undertook to settle the matter with a shot-gun, up back in the hills. Twombley never missed the bull’s-eye––a terrible hand with a gun he was. The doctor gave him two dollars for the job and looked real sick the day he heard that shot. Well, less than a week after Twombley came to the doctor and says as how he heard that a horse has to be buried and that if it isn’t the owner gets fined twenty-five dollars, and he says he’ll bury the carcass for five dollars. He explained how the horse, lying flat, was powerful sizable, and it would be a stern job to get it under ground. Well, old doctor gave the five dollars and Twombley took to the woods.
“It was a matter of a month, maybe, when Twombley came back, and soon after old Philander Sniff appeared with a horse and cart, and Doctor Rivers, as soon as he set his eyes on the horse, sent for Twombley. Do you know, son, that scamp actually figured it out with the doctor as to the cost of food and care he’d been put to in order to get that shot-and-buried-horse into shape for selling! He’d sold him for ten dollars and expenses were twelve.”
Northrup leaned back and laughed until the quiet house reëchoed with his mirth.
“Son, son!” cautioned Polly, shaking and dim-eyed, “it’s going on to midnight. We can’t carouse like this. But land! it is uplifting to have a talk when you ought to be 112 sleeping. Well, the old doctor bought the Point just then and bought Twombley a new gun. Folks as couldn’t earn their keep proper naturally drifted to the Point––God’s living acre, as the doctor called it.”
Northrup rose and stretched his arms and then bent, as Peter had done, to Aunt Polly. But unlike Peter he kissed the small yearning face upraised to his.
“It must be pleasant––being your mother,” Polly whispered.
“It’s pleasant having you acting as substitute,” Northrup replied. “Shall I bank the fire, Aunt Polly?”