CHAPTER II. TREATING OF A NOVEL STYLE OF BOARDER.
In this delightful way of living, only one thing troubled us. We didn'tsave any money. There were so many little things that we wanted, and somany little things that were so cheap, that I spent pretty much allI made, and that was far from the philosophical plan of living that Iwished to follow.
We talked this matter over a great deal after we had lived in our newhome for about a month, and we came at last to the conclusion that wewould take a boarder.
We had no trouble in getting a boarder, for we had a friend, a young manwho was engaged in the flour business, who was very anxious to comeand live with us. He had been to see us two or three times, and hadexpressed 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, andtook up his abode at "Rudder Grange."
We liked our boarder very much, but he had some peculiarities. I supposeeverybody has them. Among other things, he was very fond of telling uswhat we ought to do. He suggested more improvements in the first threedays of his sojourn with us than I had thought of since we commencedhousekeeping. And what made the matter worse, his suggestions weregenerally very good ones. Had it been otherwise I might have borne hisremarks more complacently, but to be continually told what you ought todo, and to know that you ought to do it, is extremely annoying.
He was very anxious that I should take off the rudder, which wascertainly useless to a boat situated as ours was, and make anironing-table of it. I persisted that the laws of symmetrical proprietyrequired that the rudder should remain where it was--that the very nameof our home would be interfered with by its removal, but he insistedthat "Ironing-table Grange" would be just as good a name, and thatsymmetrical 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 Euphemiawas very much pleased with it. A great many other improvements wereprojected and carried out by him, and I was very much worried. He madea flower-garden for Euphemia on the extreme forward-deck, and havingborrowed a wheelbarrow, he wheeled dozens of loads of arable dirt upour gang-plank and dumped them out on the deck. When he had coveredthe garden with a suitable depth of earth, he smoothed it off and thenplanted flower-seeds. It was rather late in the season, but most ofthem came up. I was pleased with the garden, but sorry I had not made itmyself.
One afternoon I got away from the office considerably earlier thanusual, and I hurried home to enjoy the short period of daylight that Ishould have before supper. It had been raining the day before, and asthe bottom of our garden leaked so that earthy water trickled down atone end of our bed-room, I intended to devote a short time to stuffingup the cracks in the ceiling or bottom of the deck--whichever seems themost appropriate.
But when I reached a bend in the river road, whence I always had theearliest view of my establishment, I did not have that view. Ihurried on. The nearer I approached the place where I lived, the morehorror-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 hadfloated 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 theanchor. He always said it was of no use, and taking advantage of myabsence, he has hauled it up, and has floated away, and has gone--gonewith my wife and my home!"
Euphemia and "Rudder Grange" had gone off together--where I knewnot,--and with them that horrible suggester!
I ran wildly along the bank. I called aloud, I shouted and hailed eachpassing craft--of which there were only two--but their crews must havebeen very inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did not hearme, for they paid no attention to my cries.
I met a fellow with an axe on his shoulder. I shouted to him before Ireached 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 hiswife 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! Ifthat wretched boarder had not taken the rudder for an ironing table hemight have steered in shore! Again and again I confounded--as far asmental 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 youwhere she is. She's stuck fast in the reeds at the lower end o' Peter'sPint."
"Where's that?" said I.
"Oh, it's about a mile furder up. I seed her a-driftin' up with thetide--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 riverwithout a word. Was the boat a wreck? I scarcely dared to think of it. Iscarcely dared to think at all.
The man called after me and I stopped. I could but stop, no matter whatI 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 wasa 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 vesselwrecked?"
The man looked at me a little queerly. I could not exactly interpret hisexpression.
"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 ofmy hand, and sprang away. When he reached the other side of the road, heturned and shouted at me, as though I had been deaf.
"Do you know what I think?" he yelled. "I think you're a darnedlunatic," and with that he went his way.
I hastened on to Peter's Point. Long before I reached it, I saw theboat.
It was apparently deserted. But still I pressed on. I must know theworst. 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 hulllying at an angle from the shore.
There was consequently no way for me to get on board, but to wadethrough the mud and reeds to her bow, and then climb up as well as Icould.
This I did, but it was not easy to do. Twice I sank above my kneesin mud and water, and had it not been for reeds, masses of which Ifrequently clutched when I thought I was going over, I believe I shouldhave fallen down and come to my death in that horrible marsh. WhenI reached the boat, I stood up to my hips in water and saw no way ofclimbing up. The gang-plank had undoubtedly floated away, and if it hadnot, 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 ofcanal-boats; I stuck my toes and my finger-nails in the cracks betweenthe boards--how glad I was that the boat was an old one and hadcracks!--and so, painfully and slowly, slipping part way down once ortwice, and besliming myself from chin to foot, I climbed up that postand 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-roomtable, complacently playing checkers!
My sudden entrance startled them. My appearance startled them stillmore.
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 acondition you're in. Did you fall in?"
"Fall in!" said I.
Euphemia and the boarder looked at each other. I looked at them. Then Iopened 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'tknown a bit of it!
The boat had so gently drifted off, and had so gently grounded amongthe reeds, that the voyage had never so much as disturbed their games ofcheckers.
"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 thenext to last row, and you are nearly drowned. You'll get your death ofcold--and--and he had only one king."
She led me away and I undressed and washed myself and put on my Sundayclothes.
When I reappeared I went out on deck with Euphemia. The boarder wasthere, standing by the petunia bed. His arms were folded and he wasthinking profoundly. As we approached, he turned toward us.
"You were right about that anchor," he said, "I should not have hauledit in; but it was such a little anchor that I thought it would be ofmore 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 behungry. Fortunately, we had everything necessary on board, and, as itreally didn't make any difference in our household economy, where wehappened to be located, we had supper quite as usual. In fact, thekettle had been put on to boil during the checker-playing.
After supper, we went on deck to smoke, as was our custom, but there wasa certain coolness between me and our boarder.
Early the next morning I arose and went upstairs to consider what hadbetter be done, when I saw the boarder standing on shore, near by.
"Hello!" he cried, "the tide's down and I got ashore without anytrouble. You stay where you are. I've hired a couple of mules to tow theboat back. They'll be here when the tide rises. And, hello! I've foundthe 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 ropeappeared, and we were then towed back to where we belonged.
And we are there yet. Our boarder remains with us, as the weather isstill fine, and the coolness between us is gradually diminishing. Butthe boat is moored at both ends, and twice a day I look to see if theropes are all right.
The petunias are growing beautifully, but the geraniums do not seem toflourish. Perhaps there is not a sufficient depth of earth for them.Several times our boarder has appeared to be on the point of suggestingsomething in regard to them, but, for some reason or other, he saysnothing.
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