Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm
()
About this ebook
Read more from Albert Bigelow Paine
Mark Twain, a Biography — Volume I, Part 2: 1835-1866 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain, a Biography — Volume III, Part 2: 1907-1910 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr. Rabbit's Wedding Hollow Tree Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain, a Biography — Volume III, Part 1: 1900-1907 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain's Letters — Volume 6 (1907-1910) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain, a Biography — Volume II, Part 1: 1886-1900 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain's Letters — Volume 1 (1835-1866) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain, a Biography — Volume I, Part 1: 1835-1866 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arkansaw Bear: A Tale of Fanciful Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mystery of Evelin Delorme: A Hypnotic Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain's Letters - Volume 5 (1901-1906) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bread Line: A Story of a Paper Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Van Dwellers A Strenuous Quest for a Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain's Letters — Volume 5 (1901-1906) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Car That Went Abroad: Motoring Through the Golden Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWidger's Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of Paine's Writings on Mark Twain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail Hollow Tree Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Boys' Life of Mark Twain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Boys' Life of Mark Twain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeanut Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain: A Biography. Volume II, Part 2: 1886-1900 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain's Letters — Volume 3 (1876-1885) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain: A Biography. Volume I, Part 2: 1835-1866 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain: A Biography. Volume III, Part 1: 1900-1907 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Dwellers in Arcady
Related ebooks
Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters of a Woman Homesteader Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Stable for Nightmares Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lake Road, Last House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Year in a Log Cabin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife in the Backwoods Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrairie Flowers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Year in a Log Cabin (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe House: An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLast Essays of Maurice Hewlett Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tenderfoot Bride Tales from an Old Ranch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Woman-Haters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Year in a Log Cabin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMan Size in Marble Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Woman-Haters: a yarn of Eastboro twin-lights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spooky Hollow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Stable for Nightmares (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Caxtons: A Family Picture — Volume 05 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen of Wonder - Psychological Supernatural Thriller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Short Stories Of Edith Nesbit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So You Want to Live on Sark Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Holly-Tree Inn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife In The Backwoods: A sequel to Roughing it in the Bush Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thing from the Lake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrestlands A Centennial Story of Cane Ridge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Conjure Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Stable for Nightmares; or, Weird Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
General Fiction For You
A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Things Like These (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recital of the Dark Verses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Watchers: a spine-chilling Gothic horror novel now adapted into a major motion picture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Dwellers in Arcady
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Dwellers in Arcady - Albert Bigelow Paine
Albert Bigelow Paine
Dwellers in Arcady
The Story of an Abandoned Farm
EAN 8596547414612
DigiCat, 2022
Contact: DigiCat@okpublishing.info
Table of Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER ONE
I
All my life I had dreamed of owning a brook
II
Ghosts like good architecture
III
Our debt to William C. Westbury
IV
Those were lovely days
CHAPTER TWO
I
We carried down a little hair trunk
II
Cap'n Ben has an iron door-sill
III
The thought of going back to six rooms and improvements
IV
The soft feet of the rain on the shingles
V
Elizabeth's ideas were not poetic
VI
Our last night in the barn was not like the others
CHAPTER THREE
I
At the threshold of the past
II
Paper-hanging is not a natural gift
III
There is nothing I wouldn't do for a bee—a reasonable bee
IV
There was a place we sometimes visited to see the trout
CHAPTER FOUR
I
There is compensation even for moving
II
There is work about making apple-butter
III
Lazarus's downfall was a matter of pigs
IV
Westbury had advised against wheat
V
Deer—wild deer—on our own farm!
CHAPTER FIVE
I
But Sarah was biding her time
II
We often cooked by our fireplace
III
Under the spell of the white touch
IV
The difficulty was to get busy
CHAPTER SIX
I
The magic of the starlit tree
CHRISTMAS CAROL
By Edwin Waugh
II
Westbury dropped in
III
No animal except man digs and plants
IV
Then came Bella—and Gibbs
CHAPTER SEVEN
I
We planted a number of things
II
Out of the blue
III
Ah, the bonny cow!
IV
Strawberries and trout. How is that for a combination?
CHAPTER EIGHT
I
Fate produced a man who had chickens to sell
II
I planted some canterbury-bells
III
And how the family did grow up!
IV
And then one eventful day
V
Was it the spirit of our garden?
ILLUSTRATIONS
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
I
Table of Contents
All my life I had dreamed of owning a brook
Table of Contents
ust below the brow of the hill one of the traces broke (it was in the horse-and-wagon days of a dozen years or so ago), and, if our driver had not been a prompt man our adventure might have come to grief when it was scarcely begun. As it was, we climbed on foot to the top, and waited while he went into a poor old wreck of a house to borrow a string for repairs.
We wondered if the house we were going to see would be like this one. It was of no special design and it had never had a period. It was just a house, built out of some one's urgent need and a lean purse. In the fifty years or so of its existence it had warped and lurched and become sway-backed and old—oh, so old and dilapidated—without becoming in the least antique, but just dismal and disreputable—a veritable pariah of architecture. We thought this too bad, for the situation, with its view down a little valley and in the distance the hazy hills, was the sort of thing that, common as it is in Connecticut, never loses its charm. Never mind, we said, perhaps our house
would have a view, too.
But then our trace was mended and we went along—happily, for it was sunny weather and summer-time, and, though parents of a family of three, we were still young enough to find pleasure in novelty and a surprise at every turn. Our driver was not a communicative spirit, but we drew from him that a good many houses were empty in this part—people dead or gone away, and city folks not begun to come yet
—he didn't know why, for it was handy enough to town—sixty miles by train—and a nice-enough country, and healthy—just overlooked, he guessed.
We agreed readily with this view; we were passing, just then, along a deep gorge that had a romantic, even dangerous, aspect; we descended to a pretty valley by a road so crooked that twice it nearly crossed itself; we followed up a clear, foaming little river to a place where there was a mill and a waterfall, also an old-fashioned white house surrounded by trees. Just there we crossed a bridge and our driver pulled up.
The man you came to see lives here,
he said. The house is ahead, up the next hill.
The man
must have seen us coming, for the door opened and he came through the trees, a youngish, capable-looking person who said he was the same to whom we had written—that is to say, Westbury—William C. Westbury, of Brook Ridge, Fairfield County.
Had we suspected then how large a part of our daily economies William C. Westbury was soon to become we should have given him a closer inspection. However, he did not devote himself to us. He appeared to be on terms of old acquaintance with our driver, climbed into the front seat beside him, and lost himself in news from the outlying districts. The telephone had not then reached the countryside, and our driver brought the latest bulletins. The death of a horse in Little Boston, the burning of a barn in Sanfordtown, the elopement of an otherwise estimable lady with a peddler, marked the beginning of our intimacy with the affairs of Brook Ridge.
The hill was steep, and in the open field at one side a little cascade leaped and glistened as it went racing to the river below.
That's the brook that runs through your farm,
Mr. Westbury said, quite casually, in the midst of his interchanges with the driver.
Our farm!
I felt a distinct thrill. And a brook on it! All my life I had dreamed of owning a brook.
Any trout in it?
I ventured, trying to be calm.
Best trout-brook in the township. Ain't it, Ed?
—to the driver.
Has that name,
Ed assented, nodding. I never fish, myself, but I've seen some good ones they said come out of it.
We were up the hill by this time, and Mr. Westbury waved his hand to a sloping meadow at the left.
That's one of the fields. Over there on the right is some of your timber, and up the hill yonder is the rest of it. Thirty-one acres, more or less. The brook runs through all of it—crosses the road yonder where you see that bridge.
I could feel my pulse getting quicker. There was no widely extended view, but there was a snug coziness about these neighborly meadows and wooded slopes, with the brook winding between; this friendly road with its ancient stone walls, all but concealed now by a mass of ferns or brake on one side, and on the other by a tangle of tall grass, goldenrod, purple-plumed Joe Pye weed, wild grape with big mellowing clusters, wild clematis in full bloom. New England in summer-time! What other land is like it? Our brook, our farm, here in the land of our fathers! There were a warmth, a glow, a poetry in the thought that cannot be put down in words—something to us new and wonderful, yet as old as human wandering and return.
But then all at once we were pulling up abreast of two massive maple-trees and some stone steps.
And here is your house,
said William C. Westbury.
And here is your house,
said William C. Westbury
II
Table of Contents
Ghosts like good architecture
Table of Contents
I believe I cannot quite give to-day my first impression of the house. In the years that have followed it has blended into so many other impressions that I could never be sure I was getting the right one. I had better confine myself to its physical appearance and what was perhaps a reflex impression—say, number two.
One glance was enough to show that it was all that the other old house was not. It did not sag, or lurch, or do any of those disreputable things. It stood up as straight and was as firm on its foundations as on the day when its last hand-wrought nail had been driven home, a century or so before. No mistaking its period or architecture—it was the long-roofed salt-box type, the first Connecticut habitation that followed the pioneer cabin; its vast central chimney had held it unshaken during the long generations of sun and storm.
Not that it was intact—oh, by no means. Its wide weather-boards were broken and falling; the red paint they had once known had become a mere memory, its shingles were moss-grown and curling, the grass was uncut. The weeds about the entrances and rotting well-curb grew tall and dank; the appearance of things in general was far from gay. Clouds had overcast the sky, and on that dull afternoon a sort of still deadliness hung about the premises. No cheap, common house can be a haunted house. Ghosts like good architecture, especially when it has become pretty antique, and they have a passion for neglected door-yards. The place lacked nothing that I could see to make it attractive to even the most fastidious wandering wraith. As I say, I think this was not my first impression, but certainly it was about the next one, and I could see by her face that it was Elizabeth's.
Place wants trimming up,
said Mr. Westbury, producing a big brass key, and the house needs some work on it, but the frame is as sound as ever it was. Been standing there going on two hundred years—hewn oak and hard as iron. We'll go inside.
We climbed down rather silently. I felt a tendency to step softly, for fear of waking something. The big key fitted the back door, and we followed Mr. Westbury. He told us, as we entered, that the place belonged to his wife and her sister—that they had been born there; also, their father, their grandmother, and their great-grandfather, which was as far back as they knew, though the house had always been in the family. Through a little hallway we entered a square room of considerable size. It had doors opening into two smaller rooms, and to one much larger—long and low, so low that, being a tall person, my hair brushed the plaster. Just in the corner where we entered there was an astonishingly big fireplace to which Mr. Westbury waved a sort of salute.
There is a real antique for you,
he said.
There was no question as to that. The opening, which included a Dutch oven, was fully seven feet wide, and the chimney-breast no less than ten. The long, narrow mantel-shelf was scarcely a foot below the ceiling. It took our breath a little—it was so much better than anything we had hoped for. We forgot that this was a haunted house. It had become all at once a sort of a dream house in which mentally we began placing all the ancient furnishings we had been gathering since our far-off van-dwelling days. There was a big hole in the plaster, but it was a small matter. We hardly saw it. What we saw was the long, low room, with its wide wainscoting and quaint double windows, and ranged about its walls—restored and tinted down to match—our low bookshelves; on the old oak floor were our mellow rugs, and here and there tables and desk and couches, with deep easy-chairs gathered about a wide open fire of logs. Oh, there is nothing more precious in this world than the dream of a possibility like that, when one is still young enough, and strong enough to make it come true!
This was the kitchen in the old days,
Mr. Westbury said. "They cooked over the fire and baked