Читать книгу The Four-Masted Cat-Boat, and Other Truthful Tales онлайн

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“To sum up, then, this wide-awake poultryman has had wonderful success, in spite of a week of exceptionally cold weather, from his flock of a dozen hens of some large breed. How’s that, Mr. Phelps? Isn’t it almost equal to Doyle?”

“Yes; but not accordin’ to Hoyle, ez ye might say,” said he. “Your reasonin’ is good, but it ain’t quite borne aout by the fac’s. In the fust place, this is the fust reel cold day we’ve hed this winter. Secon’ly, they ain’t no boss to the place, fer she’s a woman. Thirdly, my haouse is the nex’ one to this, an’ my boy an’ hers hez be’n makin’ those ice-cakes fer fun in some old cream-pans. Don’t take long to freeze solid in this weather. An’, las’ly, it ain’t a hen-haouse, but an ice-haouse.”

The sun rode with unusual quietness through the heavens. We heard no song of bird. The winds were whist. All nature was silent.

So was Jones.

I have two maiden aunts living down in Maine, on the edge of the woods. Their father was a deaf-and-dumb woodsman, and their mother died when they were small, and they hardly see a soul from one year’s end to the other. The consequence is, they’re the simplest, dearest old creatures one ever saw. They don’t know what evil means. They pass their days knitting and working in their garden. The quarterly visits of the itinerant preacher who deals out the gospel in that region, and my occasional trips up there, constitute the only chances they have of mingling with the outside world, and they’re as happy and unsophisticated as birds.