It was now dark. The place seemed cold and deserted.
“You’ll not find any ceilings falling on you here,” Captain Burns chuckled. “This was my boyhood home.”
“Your boyhood home!” Johnny surveyed the narrow yard surrounded by ancient maples. He looked at the insignificant dwelling towered over by a giant cottonwood tree.
“And you rose from this,” he said in an awed whisper.
“No, Johnny,” the Captain replied quickly. “I didn’t rise. No one ever rises above his boyhood home. It is the grandest place on earth. Come on in.”
The place they entered was the kitchen. It had a low ceiling. In a corner stood a small wood-burning kitchen range with a top that was warped and cracked.
“That’s the very stove,” the Captain said proudly, touching a match to shavings and watching yellow flames spread. “I cut wood for it more than thirty years ago.
“I was away from this place a long, long time, Johnny. When I got some money I bought it for a sort of retreat. When I am poor again it shall be the last of my treasured possessions to go—my boyhood home!” he ended reverently.
“When I think—” There was a rumble in the Captain’s throat as he began to speak after some moments of silence. “When I think of the good, simple, happy times we had here, I wonder—” He did not finish, but sat smiling and looking at the glowing hearth of the little, old, cracked kitchen stove.
“I was raised in this one small room,” he began once more. “Oh, yes, we slept upstairs. No fire up there, not a spark. Cold!” He chuckled. “Twenty below sometimes.