NEAR the end of a quiet street we alighted at a little frame-house, all embowered in peach and plum trees. This was the steward’s home, and soon was as much mine as if I held the title-deed. They had no children, and the steward’s wife was not long in growing wonderfully fond of me,—so fond, indeed, that she humored me in everything.
When tired of the house and little yard, I amused myself in strolling alone to the lake and taking amateur voyages in the fishermen’s boats, without their permission; and in swimming and fishing and hunting clams in Conneaut Creek, or River, whichever it is called. My favorite bathing-place was beneath the high bridge which the curious reader can cross any day on the Lake Shore Railroad.
When the steamer arrived, the steward’s wife and I went down to the pier, in the one-horse wagon, with the clean clothes of the last washing, and brought away the money for it, together with a new load of soiled linen.
This one-horse equipage, by the way, must have belonged to some neighbor, for I do not remember that we ever brought it into requisition, except for laundry purposes. Nor do I remember that I ever imperilled my neck, or the horse’s, with it alone, as would surely have been the case if it had been our property.
Our practice was, invariably, to spend the money for the last washing before the next one was begun; and this was the routine to which we scrupulously adhered:
The steward’s wife, namely, would use the first day after the steamer had gone in baking all manner of bread, pies, and cakes; enough, in fact, to last us until the good ship Diamond should come round again. Then, on the second day, we would go to the village livery-stable, and get a horse and buggy, with which we would ride five miles out in the country, and “visit” at the farm-house of her father and mother. Having thus exhausted all her earnings, we would return home on the third day, and the steward’s wife would go very contentedly about her washing.
This may not have been the best sort of economy for a poor washerwoman, but it was certainly a most delightful way for a thoughtless boy to pass his time. Counting out an occasional tendency to biliousness consequent upon overdoses of the good things of her regular first-day’s baking, I must say, the weeks I spent with that good, simple-hearted creature were very happy ones indeed.
Her kindness extended even to the tattered places of my scanty wardrobe. Everything was made whole and clean. She bought me, I remember, a shirt for fifty cents, and made over a pair of her husband’s summer pantaloons to fit me; so that I was not, as formerly, confined to the house while my solitary piece of linen was in laundry.
There was only one grievous alloy, thereafter, in my complete happiness, and that was in the shape of some much larger boys than myself, who diverted their minds by whipping me whenever and wherever they could lay hands on me. I fought them at first, but I always came off beaten; and so I gave it up, and it is due to the nimbleness of my legs, or to the exceeding elasticity inherent in terror, to add that they rarely or never caught me after that. Still the grievance was all the same.
On one occasion, however, the steward stopped over at home a trip, and, being informed of the persecutions to which I had been subjected, he gave a sound drubbing to every one of my enemies, and threatened them with the repetition of the same as often as I should complain. I had the satisfaction of witnessing this castigation, which, though somewhat informal,—being administered when each of my foes was “down,” as I may say, across my champion’s knee, in a species of “chancery” not yet introduced, I believe, into the prize ring,—had, nevertheless, the desired effect. The peace was preserved, and I was happy.