“Well, I’ve done a little in that way, too, and I have about come to the conclusion that that don’t pay as well as the making of it, as far as the comfort it gives. I ain’t a very rich man, not near so rich as folks think; but I had got a kind of sick of doing the same thing all the time, and so I thought I would try something else a spell. So I rather drew up, though I ain’t out of business yet, by a great deal. I thought I would try and see if I could make a home, so I built. But a house ain’t a home—not by a great sight. I have got as handsome a place as anybody need wish to have, but I would rather live in a hotel any day than have the bother of it. I don’t more than half believe I shall ever live there long at a time.”
He paused, and whittled with great earnestness.
“It seems a kind of aggravating, now, don’t it, when a man has worked hard half his life and more to make property, that he shouldn’t be able to enjoy it when he has got it.”
“What do you suppose is the reason?” asked Mr Snow, gravely, but with rather a preoccupied air. He was wondering how it was that Mr Green should have been betrayed into giving his dreary confidences to a comparative stranger.
“Well, I don’t know,” replied Mr Green, meditatively. “I suppose, for one thing, I have been so long in the mill that I can’t get out of the old jog easily. I should have begun sooner, or have taken work and pleasure by turns as I went along. I don’t take much comfort in what seems to please most folks.”
There was a pause; Mr Snow had nothing to say in reply, however, and in a little Mr Green went on:
“I haven’t any very near relations; cousins and cousin’s children are the nearest. I have helped them some, and would rather do it than not, and they are willing enough to be helped, but they don’t seem very near to me. I enjoy well enough going to see them once in a while, but it don’t amount to much all they care about me; and, to tell the truth, it ain’t much I care about them. If I had a family of my own, it would be different. Women folks and young folk enjoy spending money, and I suppose I would have enjoyed seeing them do it. But I have about come to the conclusion that I should have seen to that long ago.”
Without moving or turning his head, he gave his new friend a look out of the corner of his eyes that it might have surprised him a little to see; but Mr Snow saw nothing at the moment. To wonder as to why this new acquaintance should bestow his confidence on him, was succeeding a feeling of pity for him—a desire to help him—and he was considering the propriety of improving the opportunity given to drop a “word in season” for his benefit. Not that he had much confidence in his own skill at this sort of thing. It is to be feared the deacon looked on this way of witnessing for the truth as a cross to be borne rather than as a privilege to be enjoyed. He was readier with good deeds than with good words, and while he hesitated, Mr Green went on:
“How folks can hang round with nothing particular to do is what I can’t understand. I never should get used to it, I know. I’ve made considerable property, and I expect I have enjoyed the making more than I ever shall enjoy the spending of it.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you had,” said Mr Snow, gravely.