These were hard terms, but on the other hand, as Dick could command custom, and was a good, clean printer, they acceded to his conditions and printed the bills in startling type, using one or two kinds in the same word, so as to make through the eye a vivid impression of the meaning of the Fair.
From this time they had so much work to do in bill heads, tickets, envelopes, etc., that they led a calm life of unbroken industry, laying aside one quarter of their earnings each week as a fund for future stock and dividing the other three quarters equally between them.
AUNT ELIZABETH'S FENCE.
The little village of H—— is a sort of double-header, having a centre at each end, so to speak. The end nearest the railroad is known as "The Three Corners," on account of a certain arrangement of the roads meeting at that point, while the farther assemblage of houses bears a similar appellation, "The Four Corners," for a similar reason. The two parts of the town are in reality two distinct villages, although existing as one corporate body, and are banded together like the Siamese twins by a road leading directly from the heart of one to that of the other. On each side of this rural street, at neighborly distances, stand pretty white cottages, a story and a half high, nestling behind white fences under shading maples. Midway between the two Centres these dwellings stand further apart and are more evidently farmhouses; and just beyond a peaceful green meadow one's attention is suddenly arrested by a queer house—an architectural oddity, having an insignificant main part, and numerous additions, of different heights, jutting forth in every direction without any seeming plan, but looking as if they might have crept together some cold winter's day for mutual warmth, or as if the middle house was a bantam trying to shield an overgrown brood, a solitary tower having the effect of a chicken on the mother hen's back.
It was in one of the rooms of this odd residence that our young hero, Jem French, was born. His father, like his house, is decidedly odd. Mr. Joseph French was a man of ideas, not a farmer as you might suppose from his living in such a locality, but a Jack-at-all-trades, and in spite of the proverb, good at all. Therein lays the secret of his queer-shaped house. One of the little extensions is a tin shop where he mends the pots and pans of the neighborhood, or creates any new vessels desired. Another projection is devoted to carpenter work, and in a third addition he makes boots and shoes for his own family and cobbles for others. In the room above, with the big glass window, the rustic beaux and belles sit like statuary, while he preserves their pictures in ambrotypes. Each part of the building seems to be devoted to some specialty. But in one part the door is always found to be locked and the window carefully curtained, and even the children are forbidden to enter. In this room Mr. French still spends hours and hours, sometimes days and weeks, inventing, nobody knows what as yet.
Jem early bid fair to become another such man as his father, though evidently that would not be to his pecuniary benefit, for the entire surplus earnings of his parent had thus far been spent in obtaining materials for further experimenting. Still Jem inherited the inventive talent. He was envied and admired by schoolfellows and playmates. Not even the richest among them could boast of owning such unique toys as Jem was constantly making. The little stream that ran through the meadow was spanned by miniature bridges of which he was sole architect. His sailing craft, of all kinds, and fully rigged, swam in the placid water. Dams were placed here and there, and sluice-ways conducted the water to its work of turning sundry over-shot wheels which in their turn operated little pumps or moved the machinery of a mill. He made his sisters various mechanical figures which moved to the swinging of a pendulum. Cardboard images were made to saw wood, fiddle, or dance for hours together, the motive power being obtained from sand running through an inverted cone. As for carving, he had ornamented the walls of the house with a profusion of brackets, wall-pockets, and the like, taking his designs of birds or flowers from nature's own pattern. He was, in fact, a veritable young Yankee with his jack-knife, and few were the things he could not fashion with it, and few the principles of physics studied at school which he did not seek to embody or illustrate; and he had advanced beyond the range of studies in a country school when he was withdrawn by his father to assist in "doing the chores." Then having little society except his own thoughts he gradually became discontented.
One day the mail-wagon stopped at his father's gate. "A letter for Mr. French," said the carrier.
Even such a commonplace occurrence had an interest for the listless Jem and he ran to pick it up. "It didn't come very far, I guess, for here is the village postmark," said he to his mother who came to the door and extended her hand for the epistle.
"It's from aunt Elizabeth," said she, looking at the superscription.