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_ 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. _
Read next: Chapter III - Treating of a Novel Style of Girl
Read previous: Chapter I - Treating of a Novel Style of Dwelling-house
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