Rudder Grange | Page 9

little house?" he asked.
Why in the world he thought it was a little house I could not at the time imagine, unless he supposed that two people would not require a large one. But I know, now, that he lived in a very little house himself.
But it was of no use getting angry with Waterford, especially as I saw he intended walking all the way down to the ferry with me, so I told him I didn't live in any house at all.
"Why, where DO you live?" he exclaimed, stopping short.
"I live in a boat," said I.
"A boat! A sort of 'Rob Roy' arrangement, I suppose. Well, I would not have thought that of you. And your wife, I suppose, has gone home to her people?"
"She has done nothing of the kind," I answered. "She lives with me, and she likes it very much. We are extremely comfortable, and our boat is not a canoe, or any such nonsensical affair. It is a large, commodious canal-boat."
Waterford turned around and looked at me.
"Are you a deck-hand?" he asked.
"Deck-grandmother!" I exclaimed.
"Well, you needn't get mad about it," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; but I couldn't see what else you could be on a canal-boat. I don't suppose, for instance, that you're captain."
"But I am," said I.
"Look here!" said Waterford; "this is coming it rather strong, isn't it?"
As I saw he was getting angry, I told him all about it,--told him how we had hired a stranded canal-boat and had fitted it up as a house, and how we lived so cosily in it, and had called it "Rudder Grange," and how we had taken a boarder.
"Well!" said he, "this is certainly surprising. I'm coming out to see you some day. It will be better than going to Barnum's."
I told him--it is the way of society--that we would be glad to see him, and we parted. Waterford never did come to see us, and I merely mention this incident to show how some of our friends talked about Rudder Grange, when they first heard that we lived there.
After dinner that evening, when I went up on deck with Euphemia to have my smoke, we saw the boarder sitting on the bulwarks near the garden, with his legs dangling down outside.
"Look here!" said he.
I looked, but there was nothing unusual to see.
"What is it?" I asked.
He turned around and seeing Euphemia, said:
"Nothing."
It would be a very stupid person who could not take such a hint as that, and so, after a walk around the garden, Euphemia took occasion to go below to look at the kitchen fire.
As soon as she had gone, the boarder turned to me and said:
"I'll tell you what it is. She's working herself sick."
"Sick?" said I. "Nonsense!"
"No nonsense about it," he replied.
The truth was, that the boarder was right and I was wrong. We had spent several months at Rudder Grange, and during this time Euphemia had been working very hard, and she really did begin to look pale and thin. Indeed, it would be very wearying for any woman of culture and refinement, unused to house-work, to cook and care for two men, and to do all the work of a canal-boat besides.
But I saw Euphemia so constantly, and thought so much of her, and had her image so continually in my heart, that I did not notice this until our boarder now called my attention to it. I was sorry that he had to do it.
"If I were in your place," said he, "I would get her a servant."
"If you were in my place," I replied, somewhat cuttingly, "you would probably suggest a lot of little things which would make everything very easy for her."
"I'd try to," he answered, without getting in the least angry.
Although I felt annoyed that he had suggested it, still I made up my mind that Euphemia must have a servant.
She agreed quite readily when I proposed the plan, and she urged me to go and see the carpenter that very day, and get him to come and partition off a little room for the girl.
It was some time, of course, before the room was made (for who ever heard of a carpenter coming at the very time he was wanted?) and, when it was finished, Euphemia occupied all her spare moments in getting it in nice order for the servant when she should come. I thought she was taking too much trouble, but she had her own ideas about such things.
"If a girl is lodged like a pig, you must expect her to behave like a pig, and I don't want that kind."
So she put up pretty curtains at the girl's window, and with a box that she stood on end, and some old muslin and a lot of