And what are you going to do about it?
Miss Stone knew none of these things. They were of little interest to her, and she bothered her head but little about them. But they were of interest to "Dodd" Weaver. In the evolution of this young hopeful they played an important part. They were hindrances to the boy at the very outset of his course in the public schools. They begot in him habits and dislikes which it took years to efface, and from which it is doubtful if he ever did fully recover. There are multitudes in like case, and what are we going to do about it?
CHAPTER V.
The severity of the duties, pastoral and paternal, that fell to the lot of Elder Weaver, wore rapidly upon the constitution of that worthy gentleman, and when "Dodd" was nine years old his father found it necessary to retire from the pulpit, for a year at least, and, as is usual in such cases, he went to that refuge for fagged out ministers of all denominations, the old homestead of his wife's parents.
From this rustic domicile he had led the youngest daughter, a buxom bride, ten years before; to it he now returned with her and with seven small children besides. An ambitious young man and a healthy young woman, a decade before, they came back to the threshold from which they had gone out, he, broken in spirit and as poor in purse as in purpose; she, worn and faded, yet trying hard to seem cheerful as she came within the sunlight of the old home again.
The old people lengthened the cords and strengthened the stakes of their simple home, and made the Elder and his wife, and the seven children ("seven devils," an irreverent sister once called them in a burst of indignation at the state of affairs) as comfortable as possible. To be sure grandpa and grandma Stebbins were old, and it was long since there had been children in the house, but they had enough and to spare in crib and pantry, and they had lived sufficiently long in this world to accept the inevitable without a murmur.
But for all of that, the children were a source of a good deal of annoyance to the old people, especially until they were brought somewhat under subjection by the faithful hand of the old gentleman, who found that he should have to stand up for his own in the premises or submit to the unendurable.
The first real climax occurred on the second day of the quartering of the family thus, and "Dodd" was the boy who brought matters to a focus.
The month was October, and down in the yard, a few feet from the bee-hives, just beyond the shadow of the weeping-willow that stood near the well, and along the row of gooseberry bushes under which the hens were wont to gather and gossip—standing on one leg and making their toilets meanwhile—there stood a barrel, out of whose bung-hole protruded a black bottle turned bottom side up. The barrel was filled with the best cider made that season, a special run from apples that had been sorted out, and from which every worm-hole and specked place had been cut by the thrifty hand of Grandma Stebbins. This was for the family vinegar for the year, and the cask was thus left in the sun duly to ripen its contents.
"Dodd" had not been in the yard five minutes before his quick eye caught sight of this, and his eager imagination transformed it into a horse in a twinkling. He did this the more easily, too, because it was raised from the ground a foot or more, being supported by blocks of wood which in the mind's eye of the boy did well enough for legs, while a spicket, protruding from one end, below, made a head for the animal, which, though small, was available for bridling purposes.