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.”
“She must not sit there,” said Euphemia. “There's a window-pane out. Can't you cover up your head?”
“I shall not be able to breathe if I do; but I suppose that's no matter,” I replied.
The reading continued.
“Ha, ha! Lord Mar mont thun der ed thou too shalt suf fer all that this poor—”
I sprang out of bed.
Euphemia thought I was going for my pistol, and she gave one bound and stuck her head out of the door.
“Pomona, fly!” she cried.
“Yes, sma'am,” said Pomona; and she got up and flew—not very fast, I imagine. Where she flew to I don't know, but she took the lamp with her, and I could hear distant syllables of agony and blood, until the boarder came home and Pomona went to bed.
I think that this made an impression upon Euphemia, for, although she did not speak to me upon the subject (or any other) that night, the next time I heard Pomona reading, the words ran somewhat thus:
“The as ton ish ing che ap ness of land is ac count ed for by the want of home mar kets, of good ro ads and che ap me ans of trans por ta ti on in ma ny sec ti ons of the State.”
I have spoken of my pistol. During the early part of our residence at Rudder Grange I never thought of such a thing as owning a pistol.
But it was different now. I kept a Colt's revolver loaded in the bureau drawer in our bedroom.
The cause of this change was burglars. Not that any of these unpleasant persons had visited us, but we much feared they would. Several houses in the vicinity had been entered during the past month, and we could never tell when our turn would come.
To be sure, our boarder suggested that if we were to anchor out a little further at night, no burglar would risk catching his death of cold by swimming out to us; but Euphemia having replied that it would be rather difficult to move a canal-boat every night without paddle-wheels, or sails, or mules, especially if it were aground, this plan was considered to be effectually disposed of.
So we made up our minds that we must fasten up everything very securely, and I bought a pistol and two burglar-alarms. One of these I affixed to the most exposed window, and the other to the door which opened on the deck. These alarms were very simple affairs, but they were good enough. When they were properly attached to a window or door, and it was opened, a little gong sounded like a violently deranged clock, striking all the hours of the day at once.
The window did not trouble us much, but it was rather irksome to have to make the attachment to the door every night and to take it off every morning. However, as Euphemia said, it was better to take a little trouble than to have the house full of burglars, which was true enough.
We made all the necessary arrangements in case burglars should make an inroad upon us. At the first sound of the alarm, Euphemia and the girl were to lie flat on the floor or get under their beds. Then the boarder and I were to stand up, back to back, each with pistol in hand, and fire away, revolving on a common centre the while. In this way, by aiming horizontally at about four feet from the floor, we could rake the premises, and run no risk of shooting each other or the women of the family.
To be sure, there were some slight objections to this plan. The boarder's room was at some distance from ours, and he would probably not hear the alarm, and the burglars might not be willing to wait while I went forward and roused him up, and brought him to our part of the house. But this was a minor difficulty. I had no doubt but that, if it should be necessary, I could manage to get our boarder into position in plenty of time.
It was not very long before there was an opportunity of testing the plan.
About twelve o'clock one night one of the alarms (that on the kitchen window) went off with a whirr and a wild succession of clangs. For a moment I thought the morning train had arrived, and then I woke up. Euphemia was already under the bed.
I hurried on a few clothes, and then I tried to find the bureau in the dark. This was not easy, as I lost my bearings entirely. But I found it at last, got the top drawer open and took out my pistol. Then I slipped out of the room, hurried up the stairs, opened the door (setting off the alarm there, by the way), and ran along the deck (there was a cold night wind), and hastily descended the steep steps that led into the boarder's room. The door that was at the bottom of the steps was not fastened, and, as I opened it, a little stray moonlight illumed the room. I hastily stepped to the bed and shook the boarder by the shoulder. He kept HIS pistol under his pillow.
In an instant he was on his feet, his hand grasped my throat, and the cold muzzle of his Derringer pistol was at my forehead. It was an awfully big muzzle, like the mouth of a bottle.
I don't know when I lived so long as during the first minute that he held me thus.
“Rascal!” he said. “Do as much as breathe, and I'll pull the trigger.”
I didn't breathe.
I had an accident insurance on my life. Would it hold good in a case like this? Or would Euphemia have to go back to her father?
He pushed me back into the little patch of moonlight.
“Oh! is it you?” he said, relaxing his grasp. “What do you want? A mustard plaster?”
He had a package of patent plasters in his room. You took one and dipped it in hot water, and it was all ready.
“No,” said I, gasping a little. “Burglars.”
“Oh!” he said, and he put down his pistol and put on his clothes.
“Come along,” he said, and away we went over the deck.
When we reached the stairs all was dark and quiet below.
It was a matter of hesitancy as to going down.
I started to go down first, but the boarder held me back.
“Let me go down,” he said.
“No,” said I, “my wife is there.”
“That's the very reason you should not go,” he said. “She is safe enough yet, and they would fire only at a man. It would be a bad job for her if you were killed. I'll go down.”
So he went down, slowly and cautiously, his pistol in one hand, and his life in the other, as it were.
When he reached the bottom of the steps I changed my mind. I could not remain above while the burglar and Euphemia were below, so I followed.
The boarder was standing in the middle of the dining-room, into which the stairs led. I could not see him, but I put my hand against him as I was feeling my way across the floor.
I whispered to him:
“Shall we put our backs together and revolve and fire?”
“No,” he whispered back, “not now; he may be on a shelf by this time, or under a table. Let's look him up.”
I confess that I was not very anxious to look him up, but I followed the boarder, as he slowly made his way toward the kitchen door. As we opened the door we instinctively stopped.
The window was open, and by the light of the moon that shone in, we saw the rascal standing on a chair, leaning out of the window, evidently just ready to escape. Fortunately, we were unheard.
“Let's pull him in,” whispered the boarder.
“No,” I whispered in reply. “We don't want him in. Let's hoist him out.”
“All right,” returned the boarder.
We laid our pistols on the floor, and softly approached the window. Being barefooted, out steps were noiseless.
“Hoist when I count three,” breathed the boarder into my ear.
We reached the chair. Each of us took hold of two of its legs.
“One—two—three!” said the boarder, and together we gave a tremendous lift and shot the wretch out of the window.
The tide was high, and there was a good deal of water around the boat. We heard a rousing splash outside.
Now there was no need of silence.
“Shall we run on deck and shoot him as he swims?” I cried.
“No,” said the boarder, “we'll get the boat-hook, and jab him if he tries to climb up.”
We rushed on deck. I seized the boat-hook and looked over the side. But I saw no one.
“He's gone to the bottom!” I exclaimed.
“He didn't go very far then,” said the boarder, “for it's not more than two feet deep there.”
Just then our attention was attracted by a voice from the shore.
“Will you please let down the gang-plank?” We looked ashore, and there stood Pomona, dripping from every pore.
We spoke no words, but lowered the gangplank.
She came aboard.
“Good night!” said the boarder, and he went to bed.
“Pomona!” said I, “what have you been doing?”
“I was a lookin' at the moon, sir, when pop! the chair bounced, and out I went.”
“You shouldn't do that,” I said, sternly.
“Some day you'll be drowned. Take off your wet things and go to bed.”
“Yes, sma'am—sir, I mean,” said she, as she went down-stairs.
When I reached my room I lighted the lamp, and found Euphemia still under the bed.
“Is it all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “There was no burglar. Pomona fell out of the window.”
“Did you get her a plaster?” asked Euphemia, drowsily.
“No, she did not need one. She's all right now. Were you worried about me, dear?”
“No, I trusted in you entirely, and I think I dozed a little under the bed.”
In one minute she was asleep.
The boarder and I did not make this matter a subject of conversation afterward, but Euphemia gave the girl a lecture on her careless ways, and made her take several Dover's powders the next day.
An important fact in domestic economy was discovered about this time by Euphemia and myself. Perhaps we were not the first to discover it, but we certainly did find it out,—and this fact was, that housekeeping costs money. At the end of every week we counted up our expenditures—it was no trouble at all to count up our receipts—and every week the result was more unsatisfactory.
“If we could only get rid of the disagreeable balance that has to be taken along all the time, and which gets bigger and bigger like a snow-ball, I think we would find the accounts more satisfactory,” said Euphemia.
This was on a Saturday night. We always got our pencils and paper and money at the end of the week.
“Yes,” said I, with an attempt to appear facetious and unconcerned, “but it would be all well enough if we could take that snow-ball to the fire and melt it down.”
“But there never is any fire where there are snow-balls,” said Euphemia.
“No,” said I, “and that's just the trouble.”
It was on the following Thursday, when I came home in the evening, that Euphemia met me with a glowing face. It rather surprised me to see her look so happy, for she had been very quiet and preoccupied for the first part of the week. So much so, indeed, that I had thought of ordering smaller roasts for a week or two, and taking her to a Thomas Concert with the money saved. But this evening she looked as if she did not need Thomas's orchestra.
“What makes you so bright, my dear?” said I, when I had greeted her. “Has anything jolly happened?”
“No,” said she; “nothing yet, but I am going to make a fire to melt snow-balls.”
Of course I was very anxious to know how she was going to do it, but she would not tell me. It was a plan that she intended to keep to herself until she saw how it worked. I did not press her, because she had so few secrets, and I did not hear anything about this plan until it had been carried out.
Her scheme was as follows: After thinking over our financial condition and puzzling her brain to find out some way of bettering it, she had come to the conclusion that she would make some money by her own exertions, to help defray our household expenses. She never had made any money, but that was no reason why she should not begin. It was too bad that I should have to toil and toil and not make nearly enough money after all. So she would go to work and earn something with her own hands.
She had heard of an establishment in the city, where ladies of limited means, or transiently impecunious, could, in a very quiet and private way, get sewing to do. They could thus provide for their needs without any one but the officers of the institution knowing anything about it.
So Euphemia went to this place, and she got some work. It was not a very large bundle, but it was larger than she had been accustomed to carry, and, what was perfectly dreadful, it was wrapped up in a newspaper! When Euphemia told me the story, she said that this was too much for her courage. She could not go on the cars, and perhaps meet people belonging to our church, with a newspaper bundle under her arm.
But her genius for expedients saved her from this humiliation. She had to purchase some sewing-cotton, and some other little things, and when she had bought them, she handed her bundle to the woman behind the counter, and asked her if she would not be so good as to have that wrapped up with the other things. It was a good deal to ask, she knew, and the woman smiled, for the articles she had bought would not make a package as large as her hand. However, her request was complied with, and she took away a very decent package, with the card of the store stamped on the outside. I suppose that there are not more than half a dozen people in this country who would refuse Euphemia anything that she would be willing to ask for.
So she took the work home, and she labored faithfully at it for about a week, She did not suppose it would take her so long; but she was not used to such very plain sewing, and was much afraid that she would not do it neatly enough. Besides this, she could only work on it in the daytime—when I was away—and was, of course, interrupted a great deal by her ordinary household duties, and the necessity of a careful oversight of Pomona's somewhat erratic methods of doing her work.
But at last she finished the job and took it into the city. She did not want to spend any more money on the trip than was absolutely necessary, and so was very glad to find that she had a remnant of pocket-money sufficient to pay her fare both ways.
When she reached the city, she walked up to the place where her work was to be delivered, and found it much farther when she went on foot than it had seemed to her riding in the street cars. She handed over her bundle to the proper person, and, as it was soon examined and approved, she received her pay therefor.
It amounted to sixty cents. She had made no bargain, but she was a little astonished. However, she said nothing, but left the place without asking for any more work. In fact she forgot all about it. She had an idea that everything was all wrong, and that idea engrossed her mind entirely. There was no mistake about the sum paid, for the lady clerk had referred to the printed table of prices when she calculated the amount due. But something was wrong, and, at the moment, Euphemia could not tell what it was. She left the place, and started to walk back to the ferry. But she was so tired and weak, and hungry—it was now an hour or two past her regular luncheon time—that she thought she should faint if she did not go somewhere and get some refreshments.
So, like a sensible little woman as she was, she went into a restaurant. She sat down at a table, and a waiter came to her to see what she would have. She was not accustomed to eating-houses, and perhaps this was the first time that she had ever visited one alone. What she wanted was something simple. So she ordered a cup of tea and some rolls, and a piece of chicken. The meal was a very good one, and Euphemia enjoyed it. When she had finished, she went up to the counter to settle. Her bill was sixty cents. She paid the money that she had just received, and walked down to the ferry—all in a daze, she said. When she got home she thought it over, and then she cried.
After a while she dried her eyes, and when I came home she told me all about it.
“I give it up,” she said. “I don't believe I can help you any.”
Poor little thing! I took her in my arms and comforted her, and before bedtime I had convinced her that she was fully able to help me better than any one else on earth, and that without puzzling her brains about business, or wearing herself out by sewing for pay.
So we went on in our old way, and by keeping our attention on our weekly balance, we prevented it from growing very rapidly.
We fell back on our philosophy (it was all the capital we had), and became as calm and contented as circumstances allowed.
Euphemia began to take a great deal of comfort in her girl. Every evening she had some new instance to relate of Pomona's inventive abilities and aptness in adapting herself to the peculiarities of our method of housekeeping.
“Only to think!” said she, one afternoon, “Pomona has just done another VERY smart thing. You know what a trouble it has always been for us to carry all our waste water upstairs, and throw it over the bulwarks. Well, she has remedied all that. She has cut a nice little low window in the side of the kitchen, and has made a shutter of the piece she cut out, with leather hinges to it, and now she can just open this window, throw the water out, shut it again, and there it is! I tell you she's smart.”
“Yes; there is no doubt of that,” I said; “but I think that there is danger of her taking more interest in such extraordinary and novel duties than in the regular work of the house.”
“Now, don't discourage the girl, my dear,” she said, “for she is of the greatest use to me, and I don't want you to be throwing cold water about like some people.”
“Not even if I throw it out of Pomona's little door, I suppose.”
“No. Don't throw it at all. Encourage people. What would the world be if everybody chilled our aspirations and extraordinary efforts? Like Fulton's steamboat.”
“All right,” I said; “I'll not discourage her.”
It was now getting late in the season. It was quite too cool to sit out on deck in the evening, and our garden began to look desolate.
Our boarder had wheeled up a lot of fresh earth, and had prepared a large bed, in which he had planted turnips. They made an excellent fall crop, he assured us.
From being simply cool it began to be rainy, and the weather grew decidedly unpleasant. But our boarder bade us take courage. This was probably the “equinoctial,” and when it was over there would be a delightful Indian summer, and the turnips would grow nicely.
This sounded very well, but the wind blew up cold at night, and there was a great deal of unpleasant rain.
One night it blew what Pomona called a “whirlicane,” and we went to bed very early to keep warm. We heard our boarder on deck in the garden after we were in bed, and Euphemia said she could not imagine what he was about, unless he was anchoring his turnips to keep them from blowing away.
During the night I had a dream. I thought I was a boy again, and was trying to stand upon my head, a feat for which I had been famous. But instead of throwing myself forward on my hands, and then raising my heels backward over my head, in the orthodox manner, I was on my back, and trying to get on my head from that position. I awoke suddenly, and found that the footboard of the bedstead was much higher than our heads. We were lying on a very much inclined plane, with our heads downward. I roused Euphemia, and we both got out of bed, when, at almost the same moment, we slipped down the floor into ever so much water.
Euphemia was scarcely awake, and she fell down gurgling. It was dark, but I heard her fall, and I jumped over the bedstead to her assistance. I had scarcely raised her up, when I heard a pounding at the front door or main-hatchway, and our boarder shouted:
“Get up! Come out of that! Open the door! The old boat's turning over!”
My heart fell within me, but I clutched Euphemia. I said no word, and she simply screamed. I dragged her over the floor, sometimes in the water and sometimes out of it. I got the dining-room door open and set her on the stairs. They were in a topsy-turvy condition, but they were dry. I found a lantern which hung on a nail, with a match-box under it, and I struck a light. Then I scrambled back and brought her some clothes.
All this time the boarder was yelling and pounding at the door. When Euphemia was ready I opened the door and took her out.
“You go dress yourself;” said the boarder. “I'll hold her here until you come back.”
I left her and found my clothes (which, chair and all, had tumbled against the foot of the bed and so had not gone into the water), and soon reappeared on deck. The wind was blowing strongly, but it did not now seem to be very cold. The deck reminded me of the gang-plank of a Harlem steamboat at low tide. It was inclined at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, I am sure. There was light enough for us to see about us, but the scene and all the dreadful circumstances made me feel the most intense desire to wake up and find it all a dream. There was no doubt, however, about the boarder being wide awake.
“Now then,” said he, “take hold of her on that side and we'll help her over here. You scramble down on that side; it's all dry just there. The boat's turned over toward the water, and I'll lower her down to you. I'll let a rope over the sides. You can hold on to that as you go down.”
I got over the bulwarks and let myself down to the ground. Then the boarder got Euphemia up and slipped her over the side, holding to her hands, and letting her gently down until I could reach her. She said never a word, but screamed at times. I carried her a little way up the shore and set her down. I wanted to take her up to a house near by, where we bought our milk, but she declined to go until we had saved Pomona.
So I went back to the boat, having carefully wrapped up Euphemia, to endeavor to save the girl. I found that the boarder had so arranged the gang-plank that it was possible, without a very great exercise of agility, to pass from the shore to the boat. When I first saw him, on reaching the shelving deck, he was staggering up the stairs with a dining-room chair and a large framed engraving of Raphael's Dante—an ugly picture, but full of true feeling; at least so Euphemia always declared, though I am not quite sure that I know what she meant.
“Where is Pomona?” I said, endeavoring to stand on the hill-side of the deck.
“I don't know,” said he, “but we must get the things out. The tide's rising and the wind's getting up. The boat will go over before we know it.”
“But we must find the girl,” I said. “She can't be left to drown.”
“I don't think it would matter much,” said he, getting over the side of the boat with his awkward load. “She would be of about as much use drowned as any other way. If it hadn't been for that hole she cut in the side of the boat, this would never have happened.”
“You don't think it was that!” I said, holding the picture and the chair while he let himself down to the gang-plank.
“Yes, it was,” he replied. “The tide's very high, and the water got over that hole and rushed in. The water and the wind will finish this old craft before very long.”
And then he took his load from me and dashed down the gang-plank. I went below to look for Pomona. The lantern still hung on the nail, and I took it down and went into the kitchen. There was Pomona, dressed, and with her hat on, quietly packing some things in a basket.
“Come, hurry out of this,” I cried. “Don't you know that this house—this boat, I mean, is a wreck?”
“Yes, sma'am—sir, I mean—I know it, and I suppose we shall soon be at the mercy of the waves.”
“Well, then, go as quickly as you can. What are you putting in that basket?”
“Food,” she said. “We may need it.”
I took her by the shoulder and hurried her on deck, over the bulwark, down the gang-plank, and so on to the place where I had left Euphemia.
I found the dear girl there, quiet and collected, all up in a little bunch, to shield herself from the wind. I wasted no time, but hurried the two women over to the house of our milk-merchant. There, with some difficulty, I roused the good woman, and after seeing Euphemia and Pomona safely in the house, I left them to tell the tale, and ran back to the boat.
The boarder was working like a Trojan. He had already a pile of our furniture on the beach.
I set about helping him, and for an hour we labored at this hasty and toilsome moving. It was indeed a toilsome business. The floors were shelving, the stairs leaned over sideways, ever so far, and the gang-plank was desperately short and steep.
Still, we saved quite a number of household articles. Some things we broke and some we forgot, and some things were too big to move in this way; but we did very well, considering the circumstances.
The wind roared, the tide rose, and the boat groaned and creaked. We were in the kitchen, trying to take the stove apart (the boarder was sure we could carry it up, if we could get the pipe out and the legs and doors off), when we heard a crash. We rushed on deck and found that the garden had fallen in! Making our way as well as we could toward the gaping rent in the deck, we saw that the turnip-bed had gone down bodily into the boarder's room. He did not hesitate, but scrambled down his narrow stairs. I followed him. He struck a match that he had in his pocket, and lighted a little lantern that hung under the stairs. His room was a perfect rubbish heap. The floor, bed, chairs, pitcher, basin—everything was covered or filled with garden mold and turnips. Never did I behold such a scene. He stood in the midst of it, holding his lantern high above his head. At length he spoke.
“If we had time,” he said, “we might come down here and pick out a lot of turnips.”
“But how about your furniture?” I exclaimed.
“Oh, that's ruined!” he replied.
So we did not attempt to save any of it, but we got hold of his trunk and carried that on shore.
When we returned, we found that the water was pouring through his partition, making the room a lake of mud. And, as the water was rising rapidly below, and the boat was keeling over more and more, we thought it was time to leave, and we left.
It would not do to go far away from our possessions, which were piled up in a sad-looking heap on the shore; and so, after I had gone over to the milk-woman's to assure Euphemia of our safety, the boarder and I passed the rest of the night—there was not much of it left—in walking up and down the beach smoking some cigars which he fortunately had in his pocket.
In the morning I took Euphemia to the hotel, about a mile away—and arranged for the storage of our furniture there, until we could find another habitation. This habitation, we determined, was to be in a substantial house, or part of a house, which should not be affected by the tides.
During the morning the removal of our effects was successfully accomplished, and our boarder went to town to look for a furnished room. He had nothing but his trunk to take to it.
In the afternoon I left Euphemia at the hotel, where she was taking a nap (she certainly needed it, for she had spent the night in a wooden rocking-chair at the milk-woman's), and I strolled down to the river to take a last look at the remains of old Rudder Grange.
I felt sadly enough as I walked along the well-worn path to the canal-boat, and thought how it had been worn by my feet more than any other's, and how gladly I had walked that way, so often during that delightful summer. I forgot all that had been disagreeable, and thought only of the happy times we had had.
It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and the wind had entirely died away. When I came within sight of our old home, it presented a doleful appearance. The bow had drifted out into the river, and was almost entirely under water. The stern stuck up in a mournful and ridiculous manner, with its keel, instead of its broadside, presented to the view of persons on the shore. As I neared the boat I heard a voice. I stopped and listened. There was no one in sight. Could the sounds come from the boat? I concluded that it must be so, and I walked up closer. Then I heard distinctly the words:
“He grasp ed her by the thro at and yell ed, swear to me thou nev er wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot heart's blood shall stain this mar bel fib or; she gave one gry vy ous gasp and—”
It was Pomona!
Doubtless she had climbed up the stern of the boat and had descended into the depths of the wreck to rescue her beloved book, the reading of which had so long been interrupted by my harsh decrees. Could I break in on this one hour of rapture? I had not the heart to do it, and as I slowly moved away, there came to me the last words that I ever heard from Rudder Grange:
“And with one wild shry ik to heav en her heart's blo od spat ter ed that prynce ly home of woe—”