RUDDER GRANGE

By Frank R. Stockton




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Dwelling-house


  CHAPTER II.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Boarder


  CHAPTER III.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Girl


  CHAPTER IV.

  Treating of a Novel Style of Burglar


  CHAPTER V.

  Pomona Produces a Partial Revolution in Rudder Grange


  CHAPTER VI.

  The New Rudder Grange


  CHAPTER VII.

  Treating of an Unsuccessful Broker and a Dog


  CHAPTER VIII.

  Pomona Once More


  CHAPTER IX.

  We Camp Out


  CHAPTER X.

  Wet Blankets


  CHAPTER XI.

  The Boarder's Visit


  CHAPTER XII.

  Lord Edward and the Tree-man


  CHAPTER XIII.

  Pomona's Novel


  CHAPTER XIV.

  Pomona takes a Bridal Trip


  CHAPTER XV.

  In which two New Friends disport themselves


  CHAPTER XVI.

  In which an Old Friend appears, and the Bridal Trip takes a Fresh Start


  CHAPTER XVII.

  In which we take a Vacation and look for David Dutton


  CHAPTER XVIII.

  Our Tavern


  CHAPTER XIX.

  The Baby at Rudder Grange


  CHAPTER XX.

  The Other Baby at Rudder Grange




RUDDER GRANGE.



CHAPTER I. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF DWELLING HOUSE.


For some months after our marriage, Euphemia and I boarded. But we did
not like it. Indeed, there was no reason why we should like it. Euphemia
said that she never felt at home except when she was out, which feeling,
indicating such an excessively unphilosophic state of mind, was enough
to make me desire to have a home of my own, where, except upon rare and
exceptional occasions, my wife would never care to go out.

If you should want to rent a house, there are three ways to find one.
One way is to advertise; another is to read the advertisements of other
people. This is a comparatively cheap way. A third method is to apply to
an agent. But none of these plans are worth anything. The proper way
is to know some one who will tell you of a house that will exactly suit
you. Euphemia and I thoroughly investigated this matter, and I know that
what I say is a fact.

We tried all the plans. When we advertised, we had about a dozen
admirable answers, but in these, although everything seemed to suit, the
amount of rent was not named. (None of those in which the rent was named
would do at all.) And when I went to see the owners, or agents of these
suitable houses, they asked much higher rents than those mentioned in
the unavailable answers--and this, notwithstanding the fact that they
always asserted that their terms were either very reasonable or else
greatly reduced on account of the season being advanced. (It was now the
fifteenth of May.)

Euphemia and I once wrote a book,--this was just before we were
married,--in which we told young married people how to go to
housekeeping and how much it would cost them. We knew all about it, for
we had asked several people. Now the prices demanded as yearly rental
for small furnished houses, by the owners and agents of whom I have been
speaking, were, in many cases, more than we had stated a house could be
bought and furnished for!

The advertisements of other people did not serve any better. There was
always something wrong about the houses when we made close inquiries,
and the trouble was generally in regard to the rent. With agents we
had a little better fortune. Euphemia sometimes went with me on my
expeditions to real estate offices, and she remarked that these offices
were always in the basement, or else you had to go up to them in an
elevator. There was nothing between these extremes. And it was a good
deal the same way, she said, with their houses. They were all very low
indeed in price and quality, or else too high.

One trouble was that we wanted a house in a country place, not very far
from the city, and not very far from the railroad station or steamboat
landing. We also wanted the house to be nicely shaded and fully
furnished, and not to be in a malarial neighborhood, or one infested by
mosquitoes.

"If we do go to housekeeping," said Euphemia, "we might as well get a
house to suit us while we are about it. Moving is more expensive than a
fire."

There was one man who offered us a house that almost suited us. It was
near the water, had rooms enough, and some--but not very much--ground,
and was very accessible to the city. The rent, too, was quite
reasonable. But the house was unfurnished. The agent, however, did not
think that this would present any obstacle to our taking it. He was
sure that the owner would furnish it if we paid him ten per cent, on the
value of the furniture he put into it. We agreed that if the landlord
would do this and let us furnish the house according to the plans laid
down in our book, that we would take the house. But unfortunately this
arrangement did not suit the landlord, although he was in the habit of
furnishing houses for tenants and charging them ten per cent. on the
cost.

I saw him myself and talked to him about it.

"But you see," said he, when I had shown him our list of articles
necessary for the furnishing of a house, "it would not pay me to buy
all these things, and rent them out to you. If you only wanted heavy
furniture, which would last for years, the plan would answer, but you
want everything. I believe the small conveniences you have on this list
come to more money than the furniture and carpets."

"Oh, yes," said I. "We are not so very particular about furniture
and carpets, but these little conveniences are the things that make
housekeeping pleasant, and,--speaking from a common-sense point of
view,--profitable."

"That may be," he answered, "but I can't afford to make matters pleasant
and profitable for you in that way. Now, then, let us look at one or two
particulars. Here, on your list, is an ice-pick: twenty-five cents.
Now, if I buy that ice-pick and rent it to you at two and a-half cents
a year, I shall not get my money back unless it lasts you ten years. And
even then, as it is not probable that I can sell that ice-pick after
you have used it for ten years, I shall have made nothing at all by
my bargain. And there are other things in that list, such as
feather-dusters and lamp-chimneys, that couldn't possibly last ten
years. Don't you see my position?"

I saw it. We did not get that furnished house. Euphemia was greatly
disappointed.

"It would have been just splendid," she said, "to have taken our book
and have ordered all these things at the stores, one after another,
without even being obliged to ask the price."

I had my private doubts in regard to this matter of price. I am afraid
that Euphemia generally set down the lowest price and the best things.
She did not mean to mislead, and her plan certainly made our book
attractive. But it did not work very well in practice. We have a friend
who undertook to furnish her house by our book, and she never could get
the things as cheaply as we had them quoted.

"But you see," said Euphemia, to her, "we had to put them down at very
low prices, because the model house we speak of in the book is to be
entirely furnished for just so much."

But, in spite of this explanation, the lady was not satisfied.

We found ourselves obliged to give up the idea of a furnished house. We
would have taken an unfurnished one and furnished it ourselves, but we
had not money enough. We were dreadfully afraid that we should have to
continue to board.

It was now getting on toward summer, at least there was only a part of
a month of spring left, and whenever I could get off from my business
Euphemia and I made little excursions into the country round about the
city. One afternoon we went up the river, and there we saw a sight that
transfixed us, as it were. On the bank, a mile or so above the city,
stood a canal-boat. I say stood, because it was so firmly imbedded
in the ground by the river-side, that it would have been almost as
impossible to move it as to have turned the Sphinx around. This boat we
soon found was inhabited by an oyster-man and his family. They had lived
there for many years and were really doing quite well. The boat was
divided, inside, into rooms, and these were papered and painted and
nicely furnished. There was a kitchen, a living-room, a parlor and
bedrooms. There were all sorts of conveniences--carpets on the floors,
pictures, and everything, at least so it seemed to us, to make a home
comfortable. This was not all done at once, the oyster-man told me. They
had lived there for years and had gradually added this and that until
the place was as we saw it. He had an oyster-bed out in the river and
he made cider in the winter, but where he got the apples I don't know.
There was really no reason why he should not get rich in time.

Well, we went all over that house and we praised everything so much that
the oyster-man's wife was delighted, and when we had some stewed oysters
afterward,--eating them at a little table under a tree near by,--I
believe that she picked out the very largest oysters she had, to stew
for us. When we had finished our supper and had paid for it, and were
going down to take our little boat again,--for we had rowed up the
river,--Euphemia stopped and looked around her. Then she clasped her
hands and exclaimed in an ecstatic undertone:

"We must have a canal-boat!"

And she never swerved from that determination.

After I had seriously thought over the matter, I could see no good
reason against adopting this plan. It would certainly be a cheap method
of living, and it would really be housekeeping. I grew more and more in
favor of it. After what the oyster-man had done, what might not we do?
HE had never written a book on housekeeping, nor, in all probability,
had he considered the matter, philosophically, for one moment in all his
life.

But it was not an easy thing to find a canal-boat. There were none
advertised for rent--at least, not for housekeeping purposes.

We made many inquiries and took many a long walk along the water-courses
in the vicinity of the city, but all in vain. Of course, we talked a
great deal about our project and our friends became greatly interested
in it, and, of course, too, they gave us a great deal of advice, but we
didn't mind that. We were philosophical enough to know that you can't
have shad without bones. They were good friends and, by being careful in
regard to the advice, it didn't interfere with our comfort.

We were beginning to be discouraged, at least Euphemia was. Her
discouragement is like water-cresses, it generally comes up in a very
short time after she sows her wishes. But then it withers away rapidly,
which is a comfort. One evening we were sitting, rather disconsolately,
in our room, and I was reading out the advertisements of country board
in a newspaper, when in rushed Dr. Heare--one of our old friends. He was
so full of something that he had to say that he didn't even ask us how
we were. In fact, he didn't appear to want to know.

"I tell you what it is," said he, "I have found just the very thing you
want."

"A canal-boat?" I cried.

"Yes," said he, "a canal-boat."

"Furnished?" asked Euphemia, her eyes glistening.

"Well, no," answered the doctor, "I don't think you could expect that."

"But we can't live on the bare floor," said Euphemia; "our house MUST be
furnished."

"Well, then, I suppose this won't do," said the doctor, ruefully, "for
there isn't so much as a boot-jack in it. It has most things that
are necessary for a boat, but it hasn't anything that you could call
house-furniture; but, dear me, I should think you could furnish it very
cheaply and comfortably out of your book."

"Very true," said Euphemia, "if we could pick out the cheapest things
and then get some folks to buy a lot of the books."

"We could begin with very little," said I, trying hard to keep calm.

"Certainly," said the doctor, "you need make no more rooms, at first,
than you could furnish."

"Then there are no rooms," said Euphemia.

"No, there is nothing but one vast apartment extending from stem to
stern."

"Won't it be glorious!" said Euphemia to me. "We can first make a
kitchen, and then a dining-room, and a bedroom, and then a parlor--just
in the order in which our book says they ought to be furnished."

"Glorious!" I cried, no longer able to contain my enthusiasm; "I should
think so. Doctor, where is this canal-boat?"

The doctor then went into a detailed statement. The boat was stranded
on the shore of the Scoldsbury river not far below Ginx's. We knew where
Ginx's was, because we had spent a very happy day there, during our
honeymoon.

The boat was a good one, but superannuated. That, however, did not
interfere with its usefulness as a dwelling. We could get it--the doctor
had seen the owner--for a small sum per annum, and here was positively
no end to its capabilities.

We sat up until twenty minutes past two, talking about that house. We
ceased to call it a boat at about a quarter of eleven.

The next day I "took" the boat and paid a month's rent in advance. Three
days afterward we moved into it.

We had not much to move, which was a comfort, looking at it from one
point of view. A carpenter had put up two partitions in it which made
three rooms--a kitchen, a dining-room and a very long bedroom, which
was to be cut up into a parlor, study, spare-room, etc., as soon as
circumstances should allow, or my salary should be raised. Originally,
all the doors and windows were in the roof, so to speak, but our
landlord allowed us to make as many windows to the side of the boat
as we pleased, provided we gave him the wood we cut out. It saved him
trouble, he said, but I did not understand him at the time. Accordingly,
the carpenter made several windows for us, and put in sashes, which
opened on hinges like the hasp of a trunk. Our furniture did not amount
to much, at first. The very thought of living in this independent,
romantic way was so delightful, Euphemia said, that furniture seemed a
mere secondary matter.

We were obliged indeed to give up the idea of following the plan
detailed in our book, because we hadn't the sum upon which the
furnishing of a small house was therein based.

"And if we haven't the money," remarked Euphemia, "it would be of no
earthly use to look at the book. It would only make us doubt our own
calculations. You might as well try to make brick without mortar, as the
children of Israel did."

"I could do that myself, my dear," said I, "but we won't discuss that
subject now. We will buy just what we absolutely need, and then work up
from that."

Acting on this plan, we bought first a small stove, because Euphemia
said that we could sleep on the floor, if it were necessary, but we
couldn't make a fire on the floor--at least not often. Then we got
a table and two chairs. The next thing we purchased was some hanging
shelves for our books, and Euphemia suddenly remembered the kitchen
things. These, which were few, with some crockery, nearly brought us to
the end of our resources, but we had enough for a big easy-chair which
Euphemia was determined I should have, because I really needed it when
I came home at night, tired with my long day's work at the office. I had
always been used to an easy-chair, and it was one of her most delightful
dreams to see me in a real nice one, comfortably smoking my pipe in my
own house, after eating my own delicious little supper in company with
my own dear wife. We selected the chair, and then we were about to order
the things sent out to our future home, when I happened to think that we
had no bed. I called Euphemia's attention to the fact.

She was thunderstruck.

"I never thought of that," she said. "We shall have to give up the
stove."

"Not at all," said I, "we can't do that. We must give up the
easy-chair."

"Oh, that would be too bad," said she. "The house would seem like
nothing to me without the chair!"

"But we must do without it, my dear," said I, "at least for a while. I
can sit out on deck and smoke of an evening, you know."

"Yes," said Euphemia. "You can sit on the bulwarks and I can sit by you.
That will do very well. I'm sure I'm glad the boat has bulwarks."

So we resigned the easy-chair and bought a bedstead and some very plain
bedding. The bedstead was what is sometimes called a "scissors-bed."
We could shut it up when we did not want to sleep in it, and stand it
against the wall.

When we packed up our trunks and left the boarding-house Euphemia fairly
skipped with joy.

We went down to Ginx's in the first boat, having arranged that our
furniture should be sent to us in the afternoon. We wanted to be there
to receive it. The trip was just wildly delirious. The air was charming.
The sun was bright, and I had a whole holiday. When we reached Ginx's we
found that the best way to get our trunks and ourselves to our house was
to take a carriage, and so we took one. I told the driver to drive along
the river road and I would tell him where to stop.

When we reached our boat, and had alighted, I said to the driver:

"You can just put our trunks inside, anywhere."

The man looked at the trunks and then looked at the boat. Afterward he
looked at me.

"That boat ain't goin' anywhere," said he.

"I should think not," said Euphemia. "We shouldn't want to live in it,
if it were."

"You are going to live in it?" said the man.

"Yes," said Euphemia.

"Oh!" said the man, and he took our trunks on board, without another
word.

It was not very easy for him to get the trunks into our new home.
In fact it was not easy for us to get there ourselves. There was a
gang-plank, with a rail on one side of it, which inclined from the shore
to the deck of the boat at an angle of forty-five degrees, and when the
man had staggered up this plank with the trunks (Euphemia said I ought
to have helped him, but I really thought that it would be better for one
person to fall off the plank than for two to go over together), and
we had paid him, and he had driven away in a speechless condition, we
scrambled up and stood upon the threshold, or, rather, the after-deck of
our home.

It was a proud moment. Euphemia glanced around, her eyes full of happy
tears, and then she took my arm and we went down stairs--at least we
tried to go down in that fashion, but soon found it necessary to go one
at a time. We wandered over the whole extent of our mansion and found
that our carpenter had done his work better than the woman whom we had
engaged to scrub and clean the house. Something akin to despair must
have seized upon her, for Euphemia declared that the floors looked
dirtier than on the occasion of her first visit, when we rented the
boat.

But that didn't discourage us. We felt sure that we should get it clean
in time.

Early in the afternoon our furniture arrived, together with the other
things we had bought, and the men who brought them over from the
steamboat landing had the brightest, merriest faces I ever noticed among
that class of people. Euphemia said it was an excellent omen to
have such cheerful fellows come to us on the very first day of our
housekeeping.

Then we went to work. I put up the stove, which was not much trouble,
as there was a place all ready in the deck for the stove-pipe to be run
through. Euphemia was somewhat surprised at the absence of a chimney,
but I assured her that boats were very seldom built with chimneys. My
dear little wife bustled about and arranged the pots and kettles on
nails that I drove into the kitchen walls. Then she made the bed in the
bed-room and I hung up a looking-glass and a few little pictures that we
had brought in our trunks.

Before four o'clock our house was in order. Then we began to be very
hungry.

"My dear," said Euphemia, "we ought to have thought to bring something
to cook."

"That is very true," said I, "but I think perhaps we had better walk
up to Ginx's and get our supper to-night. You see we are so tired and
hungry."

"What!" cried Euphemia, "go to a hotel the very first day? I think it
would be dreadful! Why, I have been looking forward to this first meal
with the greatest delight. You can go up to the little store by the
hotel and buy some things and I will cook them, and we will have our
first dear little meal here all alone by ourselves, at our own table and
in our own house."

So this was determined upon and, after a hasty counting of the fund I
had reserved for moving and kindred expenses, and which had been sorely
depleted during the day, I set out, and in about an hour returned with
my first marketing.

I made a fire, using a lot of chips and blocks the carpenter had left,
and Euphemia cooked the supper, and we ate it from our little table,
with two large towels for a table-cloth.

It was the most delightful meal I ever ate!

And, when we had finished, Euphemia washed the dishes (the thoughtful
creature had put some water on the stove to heat for the purpose,
while we were at supper) and then we went on deck, or on the piazza, as
Euphemia thought we had better call it, and there we had our smoke. I
say WE, for Euphemia always helps me to smoke by sitting by me, and she
seems to enjoy it as much as I do.

And when the shades of evening began to gather around us, I hauled in
the gang-plank (just like a delightful old draw-bridge, Euphemia said,
although I hope for the sake of our ancestors that draw-bridges were
easier to haul in) and went to bed.

It is lucky we were tired and wanted to go to bed early, for we had
forgotten all about lamps or candles.

For the next week we were two busy and happy people. I rose about
half-past five and made the fire,--we found so much wood on the shore,
that I thought I should not have to add fuel to my expenses,--and
Euphemia cooked the breakfast. I then went to a well belonging to a
cottage near by where we had arranged for water-privileges, and filled
two buckets with delicious water and carried them home for Euphemia's
use through the day. Then I hurried off to catch the train, for, as
there was a station near Ginx's, I ceased to patronize the steamboat,
the hours of which were not convenient. After a day of work and
pleasurable anticipation at the office, I hastened back to my home,
generally laden with a basket of provisions and various household
necessities. Milk was brought to us daily from the above-mentioned
cottage by a little toddler who seemed just able to carry the small tin
bucket which held a lacteal pint. If the urchin had been the child of
rich parents, as Euphemia sometimes observed, he would have been in his
nurse's arms--but being poor, he was scarcely weaned before he began to
carry milk around to other people.

After I reached home came supper and the delightful evening hours,
when over my pipe (I had given up cigars, as being too expensive and
inappropriate, and had taken to a tall pipe and canaster tobacco) we
talked and planned, and told each other our day's experience.

One of our earliest subjects of discussion was the name of our
homestead. Euphemia insisted that it should have a name. I was quite
willing, but we found it no easy matter to select an appropriate title.
I proposed a number of appellations intended to suggest the character of
our home. Among these were: "Safe Ashore," "Firmly Grounded," and some
other names of that style, but Euphemia did not fancy any of them. She
wanted a suitable name, of course, she said, but it must be something
that would SOUND like a house and BE like a boat.

"Partitionville," she objected to, and "Gangplank Terrace," did not suit
her because it suggested convicts going out to work, which naturally was
unpleasant.

At last, after days of talk and cogitation, we named our house "Rudder
Grange."

To be sure, it wasn't exactly a grange, but then it had such an enormous
rudder that the justice of that part of the title seemed to over-balance
any little inaccuracy in the other portion.

But we did not spend all our spare time in talking. An hour or two,
every evening was occupied in what we called "fixing the house," and
gradually the inside of our abode began to look like a conventional
dwelling. We put matting on the floors and cheap but very pretty paper
on the walls. We added now a couple of chairs, and now a table or
something for the kitchen. Frequently, especially of a Sunday, we had
company, and our guests were always charmed with Euphemia's cunning
little meals. The dear girl loved good eating so much that she could
scarcely fail to be a good cook.

We worked hard, and were very happy. And thus the weeks passed on.



CHAPTER II. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BOARDER.


In this delightful way of living, only one thing troubled us. We didn't
save any money. There were so many little things that we wanted, and so
many little things that were so cheap, that I spent pretty much all
I made, and that was far from the philosophical plan of living that I
wished to follow.

We talked this matter over a great deal after we had lived in our new
home for about a month, and we came at last to the conclusion that we
would take a boarder.

We had no trouble in getting a boarder, for we had a friend, a young man
who was engaged in the flour business, who was very anxious to come
and live with us. He had been to see us two or three times, and had
expressed himself charmed with our household arrangements.

So we made terms with him. The carpenter partitioned off another room,
and our boarder brought his trunk and a large red velvet arm-chair, and
took up his abode at "Rudder Grange."

We liked our boarder very much, but he had some peculiarities. I suppose
everybody has them. Among other things, he was very fond of telling us
what we ought to do. He suggested more improvements in the first three
days of his sojourn with us than I had thought of since we commenced
housekeeping. And what made the matter worse, his suggestions were
generally very good ones. Had it been otherwise I might have borne his
remarks more complacently, but to be continually told what you ought to
do, and to know that you ought to do it, is extremely annoying.

He was very anxious that I should take off the rudder, which was
certainly useless to a boat situated as ours was, and make an
ironing-table of it. I persisted that the laws of symmetrical propriety
required that the rudder should remain where it was--that the very name
of our home would be interfered with by its removal, but he insisted
that "Ironing-table Grange" would be just as good a name, and that
symmetrical propriety in such a case did not amount to a row of pins.

The result was, that we did have the ironing-table, and that Euphemia
was very much pleased with it. A great many other improvements were
projected and carried out by him, and I was very much worried. He made
a flower-garden for Euphemia on the extreme forward-deck, and having
borrowed a wheelbarrow, he wheeled dozens of loads of arable dirt up
our gang-plank and dumped them out on the deck. When he had covered
the garden with a suitable depth of earth, he smoothed it off and then
planted flower-seeds. It was rather late in the season, but most of
them came up. I was pleased with the garden, but sorry I had not made it
myself.

One afternoon I got away from the office considerably earlier than
usual, and I hurried home to enjoy the short period of daylight that I
should have before supper. It had been raining the day before, and as
the bottom of our garden leaked so that earthy water trickled down at
one end of our bed-room, I intended to devote a short time to stuffing
up the cracks in the ceiling or bottom of the deck--whichever seems the
most appropriate.

But when I reached a bend in the river road, whence I always had the
earliest view of my establishment, I did not have that view. I
hurried on. The nearer I approached the place where I lived, the more
horror-stricken I became. There was no mistaking the fact.

The boat was not there!

In an instant the truth flashed upon me.

The water was very high--the rain had swollen the river--my house had
floated away!

It was Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoons our boarder came home early.

I clapped my hat tightly on my head and ground my teeth.

"Confound that boarder!" I thought. "He has been fooling with the
anchor. He always said it was of no use, and taking advantage of my
absence, he has hauled it up, and has floated away, and has gone--gone
with my wife and my home!"

Euphemia and "Rudder Grange" had gone off together--where I knew
not,--and with them that horrible suggester!

I ran wildly along the bank. I called aloud, I shouted and hailed each
passing craft--of which there were only two--but their crews must have
been very inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did not hear
me, for they paid no attention to my cries.

I met a fellow with an axe on his shoulder. I shouted to him before I
reached him:

"Hello! did you see a boat--a house, I mean,--floating up the river?"

"A boat-house?" asked the man.

"No, a house-boat," I gasped.

"Didn't see nuthin' like it," said the man, and he passed on, to his
wife and home, no doubt. But me! Oh, where was my wife and my home?

I met several people, but none of them had seen a fugitive canal-boat.

How many thoughts came into my brain as I ran along that river road! If
that wretched boarder had not taken the rudder for an ironing table he
might have steered in shore! Again and again I confounded--as far as
mental ejaculations could do it--his suggestions.

I was rapidly becoming frantic when I met a person who hailed me.

"Hello!" he said, "are you after a canal-boat adrift?"

"Yes," I panted.

"I thought you was," he said. "You looked that way. Well, I can tell you
where she is. She's stuck fast in the reeds at the lower end o' Peter's
Pint."

"Where's that?" said I.

"Oh, it's about a mile furder up. I seed her a-driftin' up with the
tide--big flood tide, to-day--and I thought I'd see somebody after her,
afore long. Anything aboard?"

Anything!

I could not answer the man. Anything, indeed! I hurried on up the river
without a word. Was the boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. I
scarcely dared to think at all.

The man called after me and I stopped. I could but stop, no matter what
I might hear.

"Hello, mister," he said, "got any tobacco?"

I walked up to him. I took hold of him by the lapel of his coat. It was
a dirty lapel, as I remember even now, but I didn't mind that.

"Look here," said I. "Tell me the truth, I can bear it. Was that vessel
wrecked?"

The man looked at me a little queerly. I could not exactly interpret his
expression.

"You're sure you kin bear it?" said he.

"Yes," said I, my hand trembling as I held his coat.

"Well, then," said he, "it's mor'n I kin," and he jerked his coat out of
my hand, and sprang away. When he reached the other side of the road, he
turned and shouted at me, as though I had been deaf.

"Do you know what I think?" he yelled. "I think you're a darned
lunatic," and with that he went his way.

I hastened on to Peter's Point. Long before I reached it, I saw the
boat.

It was apparently deserted. But still I pressed on. I must know the
worst. When I reached the Point, I found that the boat had run aground,
with her head in among the long reeds and mud, and the rest of her hull
lying at an angle from the shore.

There was consequently no way for me to get on board, but to wade
through the mud and reeds to her bow, and then climb up as well as I
could.

This I did, but it was not easy to do. Twice I sank above my knees
in mud and water, and had it not been for reeds, masses of which I
frequently clutched when I thought I was going over, I believe I should
have fallen down and come to my death in that horrible marsh. When
I reached the boat, I stood up to my hips in water and saw no way of
climbing up. The gang-plank had undoubtedly floated away, and if it had
not, it would have been of no use to me in my position.

But I was desperate. I clasped the post that they put in the bow of
canal-boats; I stuck my toes and my finger-nails in the cracks between
the boards--how glad I was that the boat was an old one and had
cracks!--and so, painfully and slowly, slipping part way down once or
twice, and besliming myself from chin to foot, I climbed up that post
and scrambled upon deck. In an instant, I reached the top of the stairs,
and in another instant I rushed below.

There sat my wife and our boarder, one on each side of the dining-room
table, complacently playing checkers!

My sudden entrance startled them. My appearance startled them still
more.

Euphemia sprang to her feet and tottered toward me.

"Mercy!" she exclaimed; "has anything happened?"

"Happened!" I gasped.

"Look here," cried the boarder, clutching me by the arm, "what a
condition you're in. Did you fall in?"

"Fall in!" said I.

Euphemia and the boarder looked at each other. I looked at them. Then I
opened my mouth in earnest.

"I suppose you don't know," I yelled, "that you have drifted away!"

"By George!" cried the boarder, and in two bounds he was on deck.

Dirty as I was, Euphemia fell into my arms. I told her all. She hadn't
known a bit of it!

The boat had so gently drifted off, and had so gently grounded among
the reeds, that the voyage had never so much as disturbed their games of
checkers.

"He plays such a splendid game," Euphemia sobbed, "and just as you came,
I thought I was going to beat him. I had two kings and two pieces on the
next to last row, and you are nearly drowned. You'll get your death of
cold--and--and he had only one king."

She led me away and I undressed and washed myself and put on my Sunday
clothes.

When I reappeared I went out on deck with Euphemia. The boarder was
there, standing by the petunia bed. His arms were folded and he was
thinking profoundly. As we approached, he turned toward us.

"You were right about that anchor," he said, "I should not have hauled
it in; but it was such a little anchor that I thought it would be of
more use on board as a garden hoe."

"A very little anchor will sometimes do very well," said I, cuttingly,
"when it is hooked around a tree."

"Yes, there is something in that," said he.

It was now growing late, and as our agitation subsided we began to be
hungry. Fortunately, we had everything necessary on board, and, as it
really didn't make any difference in our household economy, where we
happened to be located, we had supper quite as usual. In fact, the
kettle had been put on to boil during the checker-playing.

After supper, we went on deck to smoke, as was our custom, but there was
a certain coolness between me and our boarder.

Early the next morning I arose and went upstairs to consider what had
better be done, when I saw the boarder standing on shore, near by.

"Hello!" he cried, "the tide's down and I got ashore without any
trouble. You stay where you are. I've hired a couple of mules to tow the
boat back. They'll be here when the tide rises. And, hello! I've found
the gang-plank. It floated ashore about a quarter of a mile below here."

In the course of the afternoon the mules and two men with a long rope
appeared, and we were then towed back to where we belonged.

And we are there yet. Our boarder remains with us, as the weather is
still fine, and the coolness between us is gradually diminishing. But
the boat is moored at both ends, and twice a day I look to see if the
ropes are all right.

The petunias are growing beautifully, but the geraniums do not seem to
flourish. Perhaps there is not a sufficient depth of earth for them.
Several times our boarder has appeared to be on the point of suggesting
something in regard to them, but, for some reason or other, he says
nothing.



CHAPTER III. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF GIRL.


One afternoon, as I was hurrying down Broadway to catch the five o'clock
train, I met Waterford. He is an old friend of mine, and I used to like
him pretty well.

"Hello!" said he, "where are you going?"

"Home," I answered.

"Is that so?" said he. "I didn't know you had one."

I was a little nettled at this, and so I said, somewhat brusquely
perhaps:

"But you must have known I lived somewhere."

"Oh, yes! But I thought you boarded," said he. "I had no idea that you
had a home."

"But I have one, and a very pleasant home, too. You must excuse me for
not stopping longer, as I must catch my train."

"Oh! I'll walk along with you," said Waterford, and so we went down the
street together.

"Where is your little house?" he asked.

Why in the world he thought it was a little house I could not at the
time imagine, unless he supposed that two people would not require
a large one. But I know, now, that he lived in a very little house
himself.

But it was of no use getting angry with Waterford, especially as I saw
he intended walking all the way down to the ferry with me, so I told him
I didn't live in any house at all.

"Why, where DO you live?" he exclaimed, stopping short.

"I live in a boat," said I.

"A boat! A sort of 'Rob Roy' arrangement, I suppose. Well, I would not
have thought that of you. And your wife, I suppose, has gone home to her
people?"

"She has done nothing of the kind," I answered. "She lives with me, and
she likes it very much. We are extremely comfortable, and our boat is
not a canoe, or any such nonsensical affair. It is a large, commodious
canal-boat."

Waterford turned around and looked at me.

"Are you a deck-hand?" he asked.

"Deck-grandmother!" I exclaimed.

"Well, you needn't get mad about it," he said. "I didn't mean to
hurt your feelings; but I couldn't see what else you could be on a
canal-boat. I don't suppose, for instance, that you're captain."

"But I am," said I.

"Look here!" said Waterford; "this is coming it rather strong, isn't
it?"

As I saw he was getting angry, I told him all about it,--told him how we
had hired a stranded canal-boat and had fitted it up as a house, and how
we lived so cosily in it, and had called it "Rudder Grange," and how we
had taken a boarder.

"Well!" said he, "this is certainly surprising. I'm coming out to see
you some day. It will be better than going to Barnum's."

I told him--it is the way of society--that we would be glad to see him,
and we parted. Waterford never did come to see us, and I merely mention
this incident to show how some of our friends talked about Rudder
Grange, when they first heard that we lived there.

After dinner that evening, when I went up on deck with Euphemia to have
my smoke, we saw the boarder sitting on the bulwarks near the garden,
with his legs dangling down outside.

"Look here!" said he.

I looked, but there was nothing unusual to see.

"What is it?" I asked.

He turned around and seeing Euphemia, said:

"Nothing."

It would be a very stupid person who could not take such a hint as that,
and so, after a walk around the garden, Euphemia took occasion to go
below to look at the kitchen fire.

As soon as she had gone, the boarder turned to me and said:

"I'll tell you what it is. She's working herself sick."

"Sick?" said I. "Nonsense!"

"No nonsense about it," he replied.

The truth was, that the boarder was right and I was wrong. We had spent
several months at Rudder Grange, and during this time Euphemia had
been working very hard, and she really did begin to look pale and
thin. Indeed, it would be very wearying for any woman of culture and
refinement, unused to house-work, to cook and care for two men, and to
do all the work of a canal-boat besides.

But I saw Euphemia so constantly, and thought so much of her, and had
her image so continually in my heart, that I did not notice this until
our boarder now called my attention to it. I was sorry that he had to do
it.

"If I were in your place," said he, "I would get her a servant."

"If you were in my place," I replied, somewhat cuttingly, "you would
probably suggest a lot of little things which would make everything very
easy for her."

"I'd try to," he answered, without getting in the least angry.

Although I felt annoyed that he had suggested it, still I made up my
mind that Euphemia must have a servant.

She agreed quite readily when I proposed the plan, and she urged me
to go and see the carpenter that very day, and get him to come and
partition off a little room for the girl.

It was some time, of course, before the room was made (for who ever
heard of a carpenter coming at the very time he was wanted?) and, when
it was finished, Euphemia occupied all her spare moments in getting it
in nice order for the servant when she should come. I thought she was
taking too much trouble, but she had her own ideas about such things.

"If a girl is lodged like a pig, you must expect her to behave like a
pig, and I don't want that kind."

So she put up pretty curtains at the girl's window, and with a box that
she stood on end, and some old muslin and a lot of tacks, she made a
toilet-table so neat and convenient that I thought she ought to take it
into our room and give the servant our wash-stand.

But all this time we had no girl, and as I had made up my mind about the
matter, I naturally grew impatient, and at last I determined to go and
get a girl myself.

So, one day at lunch-time, I went to an intelligence office in the city.
There I found a large room on the second floor, and some ladies, and one
or two men, sitting about, and a small room, back of it, crowded with
girls from eighteen to sixty-eight years old. There were also girls upon
the stairs, and girls in the hall below, besides some girls standing on
the sidewalk before the door.

When I made known my business and had paid my fee, one of the several
proprietors who were wandering about the front room went into the
back apartment and soon returned with a tall Irishwoman with a bony
weather-beaten face and a large weather-beaten shawl. This woman was
told to take a chair by my side. Down sat the huge creature and stared
at me. I did not feel very easy under her scrutinizing gaze, but I bore
it as best I could, and immediately began to ask her all the appropriate
questions that I could think of. Some she answered satisfactorily, and
some she didn't answer at all; but as soon as I made a pause, she began
to put questions herself.

"How many servants do you kape?" she asked.

I answered that we intended to get along with one, and if she understood
her business, I thought she would find her work very easy, and the place
a good one.

She turned sharp upon me and said:

"Have ye stationary wash-tubs?"

I hesitated. I knew our wash-tubs were not stationary, for I had helped
to carry them about. But they might be screwed fast and made stationary
if that was an important object. But, before making this answer,
I thought of the great conveniences for washing presented by our
residence, surrounded as it was, at high tide, by water.

"Why, we live in a stationary wash-tub," I said, smiling.

The woman looked at me steadfastly for a minute, and then she rose
to her feet. Then she called out, as if she were crying fish or
strawberries:

"Mrs. Blaine!"

The female keeper of the intelligence office, and the male keeper, and
a thin clerk, and all the women in the back room, and all the patrons in
the front room, jumped up and gathered around us.

Astonished and somewhat disconcerted, I rose to my feet and confronted
the tall Irishwoman, and stood smiling in an uncertain sort of a way, as
if it were all very funny; but I couldn't see the point. I think I must
have impressed the people with the idea that I wished I hadn't come.

"He says," exclaimed the woman, as if some other huckster were crying
fish on the other side of the street--"he says he lives in a wash-toob."

"He's crazy!" ejaculated Mrs. Blaine, with an air that indicated
"policeman" as plainly as if she had put her thought into words.

A low murmur ran through the crowd of women, while the thin clerk edged
toward the door.

I saw there was no time to lose. I stepped back a little from the tall
savage, who was breathing like a hot-air engine in front of me, and made
my explanations to the company. I told the tale of "Rudder Grange," and
showed them how it was like to a stationary wash-tub--at certain stages
of the tide.

I was listened to with great attention. When I had finished, the tall
woman turned around and faced the assemblage.

"An' he wants a cook to make soup! In a canal-boat!" said she, and off
she marched into the back-room, followed closely by all the other women.

"I don't think we have any one here who would suit you," said Mrs.
Blaine.

I didn't think so either. What on earth would Euphemia have done with
that volcanic Irishwoman in her little kitchen! I took up my hat and
bade Mrs. Blaine good morning.

"Good morning," said she, with a distressing smile.

She had one of those mouths that look exactly like a gash in the face.

I went home without a girl. In a day or two Euphemia came to town and
got one. Apparently she got her without any trouble, but I am not sure.

She went to a "Home"--Saint Somebody's Home--a place where they keep
orphans to let, so to speak. Here Euphemia selected a light-haired,
medium-sized orphan, and brought her home.

The girl's name was Pomona. Whether or not her parents gave her this
name is doubtful. At any rate, she did not seem quite decided in her
mind about it herself, for she had not been with us more than two weeks
before she expressed a desire to be called Clare. This longing of her
heart, however, was denied her. So Euphemia, who was always correct,
called her Pomona. I did the same whenever I could think not to say
Bologna--which seemed to come very pat for some reason or other.

As for the boarder, he generally called her Altoona, connecting her in
some way with the process of stopping for refreshments, in which she was
an adept.

She was an earnest, hearty girl. She was always in a good humor, and
when I asked her to do anything, she assented in a bright, cheerful way,
and in a loud tone full of good-fellowship, as though she would say:

"Certainly, my high old cock! To be sure I will. Don't worry about
it--give your mind no more uneasiness on that subject. I'll bring the
hot water."

She did not know very much, but she was delighted to learn, and she was
very strong. Whatever Euphemia told her to do, she did instantly with a
bang. What pleased her better than anything else was to run up and
down the gang-plank, carrying buckets of water to water the garden.
She delighted in out-door work, and sometimes dug so vigorously in
our garden that she brought up pieces of the deck-planking with every
shovelful.

Our boarder took the greatest interest in her, and sometimes watched her
movements so intently that he let his pipe go out.

"What a whacking girl that would be to tread out grapes in the vineyards
of Italy! She'd make wine cheap," he once remarked.

"Then I'm glad she isn't there," said Euphemia, "for wine oughtn't to be
cheap."

Euphemia was a thorough little temperance woman.

The one thing about Pomona that troubled me more than anything else was
her taste for literature. It was not literature to which I objected, but
her very peculiar taste. She would read in the kitchen every night after
she had washed the dishes, but if she had not read aloud, it would not
have made so much difference to me. But I am naturally very sensitive to
external impressions, and I do not like the company of people who, like
our girl, cannot read without pronouncing in a measured and distinct
voice every word of what they are reading. And when the matter thus read
appeals to one's every sentiment of aversion, and there is no way of
escaping it, the case is hard indeed.

From the first, I felt inclined to order Pomona, if she could not attain
the power of silent perusal, to cease from reading altogether; but
Euphemia would not hear to this.

"Poor thing!" said she; "it would be cruel to take from her her only
recreation. And she says she can't read any other way. You needn't
listen if you don't want to."

That was all very well in an abstract point of view; but the fact was,
that in practice, the more I didn't want to listen, the more I heard.

As the evenings were often cool, we sat in our dining-room, and the
partition between this room and the kitchen seemed to have no influence
whatever in arresting sound. So that when I was trying to read or to
reflect, it was by no means exhilarating to my mind to hear from the
next room that:

"The la dy ce sel i a now si zed the weep on and all though the boor ly
vil ly an re tain ed his vy gor ous hold she drew the blade through his
fin gers and hoorl ed it far be hind her dryp ping with jore."

This sort of thing, kept up for an hour or so at a time, used to drive
me nearly wild. But Euphemia did not mind it. I believe that she had
so delicate a sense of what was proper, that she did not hear Pomona's
private readings.

On one occasion, even Euphemia's influence could scarcely restrain me
from violent interference.

It was our boarder's night out (when he was detained in town by his
business), and Pomona was sitting up to let him in. This was necessary,
for our front-door (or main-hatchway) had no night-latch, but was
fastened by means of a bolt. Euphemia and I used to sit up for him, but
that was earlier in the season, when it was pleasant to be out on
deck until quite a late hour. But Pomona never objected to sitting (or
getting) up late, and so we allowed this weekly duty to devolve on her.

On this particular night I was very tired and sleepy, and soon after I
got into bed I dropped into a delightful slumber. But it was not long
before I was awakened by the fact that:

"Sa rah did not fl inch but gras ped the heat ed i ron in her un in jur
ed hand and when the ra bid an i mal a proach ed she thr ust the lur id
po ker in his--"

"My conscience!" said I to Euphemia, "can't that girl be stopped?"

"You wouldn't have her sit there and do nothing, would you?" said she.

"No; but she needn't read out that way."

"She can't read any other way," said Euphemia, drowsily.

"Yell af ter yell res oun ded as he wil dly spr rang--"

"I can't stand that, and I won't," said I. "Why don't she go into the
kitchen?--the dining-room's no place for her."