In particular, I
had two faithful fellows, natives of my own father's town
of Bremen. While they were with me I could leave them a
whole afternoon at a time, while I took any little job
there might be, and worked at it at my own house at home.
Where my house was, except that it was far uptown, they
never asked, nor ever, so far as I know, cared. This
gave me the chance for many a pleasant afternoon with my
mother, such as we had dreamed of in the old days when we
talked of Kansas. I would work at the lathe or the bench
and she would read to me. Or we would put off the bench
till the evening, and we would both go out into the
cornfield together.
And so we lived year after year. I am afraid that we
worshipped each other too much. We were in the
heart of a crowded city, but there was that in our lives
which tended a little to habits of loneliness, and I
suppose a moralist would say that our dangers lay in that
direction.
On the other hand, I am almost ashamed to say that,
as I sat in a seat I had made for myself in old Van der
Tromp's pear-tree, I would look upon my corn and peas and
squashes and tomatoes with a satisfaction which I believe
many a nobleman in England does not enjoy.
Till the youngest of the Fordyce heirs was of age,
and that would not be till 1880, this was all my own. I
was, by right of possession and my own labors, lord of
all this region.
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