Hills of the Shatemuc Part 10

"Nothing -- I was thinking you had been in the shade lately.

We've got 'most enough, I guess."

"Shade! -- I wish there was such a thing. This is a pretty place though, if it wasn't August, -- and if one was doing anything but sitting on a rock fishing."

"Isn't it better than Asphodel?" said Winthrop.

"Asphodel! -- When are you going to get away from here, Winthrop?"

"I don't know."

"Has anything been done about it?"

"No."

"It is time, Winthrop."

Winthrop was silent.

"We must manage it somehow. You ought not to be fishing here any longer. I want you to get on the way."

"Ay -- I must wait awhile," said the other with a sigh. "I shall go -- that's all I know, but I can't see a bit ahead. I'm round there under the point now, and there's a big headland in the way that hides the up view."

Again the eyes of the fishers were fixed on their corks, gravely, and in the case of Rufus with a somewhat disturbed look.

"I wish I was clear of the headlands too," said he after a short silence; "and there's one standing right across my way now."

"What's that?"

"Books."

"Books?" said Winthrop.

"Yes -- books which I haven't got."

"Books!" said his brother in astonishment.

"Yes --why?"

"I thought you said _boots_," the other remarked simply, as he disengaged a fish from the hook.

"Well," said Rufus sharply, "what then? what if I did? Can't a man want to furnish both ends of his house at once?"

"I have heard of a man in his sleep getting himself turned about with his head in the place of his feet. I thought he was dreaming."

"You may have your five dollars again, if you think them ill- bestowed," said the other putting his hand in his pocket; -- "There they are! -- I don't want them -- I will find a way to stand on my own legs -- with boots or without, as the case may be."

"I don't know who has better legs," said Winthrop. "I can't pity you."

"But seriously, Winthrop," said Rufus, smiling in spite of himself, -- "a man may go empty-headed, but he cannot go bare- footed into a library, nor into society."

"Did you go much into society at Asphodel?" asked Winthrop.

"Not near so much as I shall -- and that's the very thing. I _can't do_ without these things, you see. They are necessary to me. Even at Asphodel -- but that was nothing. Asphodel will be a very good place for you to go to in the first instance. You won't find yourself a stranger."

"Will you be ready for college next year?"

"Hum -- don't know -- it depends. I am not anxious about it -- I shall be all the better prepared if I wait longer, and I should like to have you with me. It will make no difference in the end, for I can enter higher, and that will save expense.

Seriously Winthrop, you _must_ get away."

"I _must_ catch that fish," said Winthrop, -- "if I can --"

"You won't --"

"I've got him."

"There's one place at Asphodel where I've been a good deal -- Mr. Haye's -- he's an old friend of my father's and thinks a world of him. You'll like him -- he's been very kind to me."

"What shall I like him for -- besides that?" said Winthrop.

"O he's a man of great wealth, and has a beautiful place there, and keeps a very fine house, and he's very hospitable.

He's always very glad to see me; and it's rather a pleasant change from Glanbally's _vis-a-vis_ and underdone apple-pies. He is one of the rich, rich Mannahatta merchants, but he has a taste for better things too. Father knows him -- they met some years ago in the Legislature, and father has done him some service or other since. He has no family -- except one or two children not grown up -- his wife is dead -- so I suppose he was glad of somebody to help him eat his fine dinners. He said some very handsome things to encourage me. He might have offered me the use of his library -- but he did not."

"Perhaps he hasn't one."

"Yes he has -- a good one."

"It's got into the wrong hands, I'm afraid," said Winthrop.

"He has a _little_ the character of being hard-fisted. At least I think so. He has a rich ward that he is bringing up with his daughter, -- a niece of his wife's -- and people say he will take his commission out of her property; and there is n.o.body to look after it."

"Well I shan't take the office," said Winthrop, getting up.

"If the thought of Mr. Haye's fine dinner hasn't taken away your appet.i.te, suppose we get home and see how these mackerel will look fried."

"It's just getting pleasant now," said Rufus as he rose to his feet. "There might be a worse office to take, for she will have a pretty penny, they say."

"Do you think of it yourself?"

"There's two of them," said Rufus smiling.

"Well, you take one and I'll take the other," said Winthrop.

gravely. "That's settled. And here is something you had better put in your pocket as we go -- it may be useful in the meanwhile."

He quietly gathered up the five dollars from the rock and slipped them into the pocket of Rufus's jacket as he spoke; then slipped himself off the rock, took the fishing tackle and baskets into the boat, and then his brother, and pushed out into the tide. There was a strong ebb, and they ran swiftly down past rock and mountain and valley, all in a cooler and fairer beauty than a few hours before when they had gone up.

Rufus took off his hat and declared there was no place like home; and Winthrop sometimes pulled a few strong strokes and then rested on his oars and let the boat drop down with the tide.

"Winthrop," -- said Rufus, as he sat paddling his hands in the water over the side of the boat, -- "you're a tremendous fine fellow!"

"Thank you. -- I wish you'd sit a little more in the middle."