"Is is this Connecticut?"
"That's what it is."
I breathed easier. If he had said Pennsylvania it would have meant that we were a hundred and fifty miles from home.
"Do you know of any place called the Glen?"
"Of course; right up ahead a few miles. Where'd you folks come from, anyway? You don't appear to know much about locations."
I side-stepped, thanking him profusely. We were all right, then, but it seemed a narrow escape.
At last we entered the Glen and recognized certain landmarks. It was a somber place now its aspect weirdly changed since the first days of our coming. Then it had been a riot of summer-time, the cliffs a mat and tangle of green that had shut us in. On this dull December evening, with its vines and shrubs and gaunt trees bare, its pointed cedars and hemlocks the only green, its dark water swirling under overhanging rocks, it had become an entrance to Valhalla, the dim abode of the gods.
How friendly Westbury's lights looked when we crossed the bridge by the mill and turned into the drive, and what gracious comfort there was in his bright fire and warm, waiting supper. We did not go up the hill that night. Good Old Beek found rest and food and society in Westbury's big red barn.
IV The difficulty was to get busy
The difficulty was to get busy at the condensing process. Work was pressing. Not exactly the work, either, but the need of it. No, I
II Westbury dropped in
It was our refreshment and exercise to bring in the logs. We were told that in a former day they had been dragged in by a horse, who drew them right up to the wide stone hearth. But we did not use Lord Beaconsfield for this work. For one thing, he would have been too big to get through the door; besides, we were strong, and liked the job. We had two pairs of ice-tongs, and we would put on our rubber boots, and take the tongs, and go out into the snow, and fasten to a log one at each end and drag it across Captain Ben's iron door-sill, and lift it in and swing it across the stout andirons with a skill that improved with each day's practice. They were good, lusty sticks some of them nearly two feet through. These were the back-logs, and they would last two or three days, buried in the ashes, breaking at last into a mass of splendid coals.
In New England one builds a fire scientifically, if he expects to keep warm by it. There must be a fore-stick and a back-stick, and a pyramid of other sticks, with proper draught below and flame outlets above. And he must not spare fuel not if he expects heat. Westbury dropped in one afternoon just when we had completed a masterpiece in fire-building. He went up to warm his hands and regarded the blazing heap of hickory with critical appraisal.
"That fire cost you two dollars," he remarked, probably recalling the number of days it had taken Old Pop and Sam to cut and cord the big hickory across the brook.
"It's worth it," I said. "I've paid many a two dollars for luxuries that weren't worth five minutes of this."
Westbury dropped into a comfortable chair, took out his knife, and picked up a piece of pine kindling.
"You think this beats city life?" he observed, whittling slowly.
"Well, that depends on what you want. If you like noise and action, the city's the place. We once lived in a flat where there was a piano at one end of the hall and two phonographs at the other. Then there was a man across the air-shaft who practised on the clarinet, and a professional singer up-stairs. Besides this, when the season was right, we had a hand-organ concert every few minutes on the street. When everything was going at once it was quite a combination. The trolley in front and the Elevated railway behind helped out, too, besides the automobiles, and the newsboys and more or less babies that were trying to do their part. Some people would be lonesome without those things, I suppose."
Westbury whittled reflectively.
"I like to be where it's busy," he commented, "but I guess a fellow could get tired of too much of it. It's pretty nice to live where you can look out on the snow and the woods, and where you can hear it rain, and in the spring wake up in the night and listen to the frogs sing." Westbury's eye ranged about the room, taking in the pictures and bric-à-brac and the bookshelves along the wall. "I wonder what Captain Ben Meeker would think to see his old kitchen turned into a library," he went on, thoughtfully. "Not many books in his day, I guess; maybe one or two on the parlor table, mostly about religion. They were pretty strong on religion, back in that time, though Captain Ben, I guess, didn't go in on it as heavy as his wife. Captain Ben was more for hunting, and horses, and dogs, and the man that could cut the most grass in a day. The story goes that when Eli Brayton, the shoemaker, wanted to marry Molly Meeker, Captain Ben wouldn't give her to him because he said Eli hadn't proved himself a man yet. Brayton was boarding in the family and working in the little shop that used to stand across the road. Aunt Sarah Meeker, Captain Ben's wife, wanted the shoemaker in the family because he was religious; but Captain Ben said, 'No, sir, he's got to prove himself a man before he can have Molly.' Well, one day Eli Brayton saw a fox up in the timber, and came down to the house and told Captain Ben about it. 'Let me have your gun,' he said, 'and I'll go up and get that chap that's been killing your chickens lately.' 'All right,' says Captain Ben, 'but you won't get him.' Eli didn't say anything, but took the old musket and slipped up there, and by and by they heard a shot and pretty soon he came down the hill with Mr. Fox over his shoulder. They went out on the step to meet him, and he threw the fox down in front of Molly Meeker. 'There's some fur for you,' he said, 'and I guess he won't catch any more chickens.' Captain Ben went up to Eli and slapped him on