The House of Martha

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The House of Martha, by Frank R. Stockton

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Title: The House of Martha
Author: Frank R. Stockton

Release Date: July 13, 2006 [eBook #18822]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE HOUSE OF MARTHA
by
FRANK R. STOCKTON

Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1891 Copyright, 1891, By Frank B. Stockton. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. My Grandmother and I
II. Relating to my Year in Europe
III. The Modern Use of the Human Ear
IV. I obtain a Listener
V. Chester Walkirk
VI. My Under-Study
VII. My Book
VIII. The Malarial Adjunct
IX. Walkirk's Idea
X. The Plan of Seclusion
XI. My Nun
XII. Eza
XIII. My Friend Vespa
XIV. I favor Permanency in Office
XV. How we went back to Genoa
XVI. I run upon a Sandbar
XVII. Regarding the Elucidation of National Characteristics
XVIII. An Illegible Word
XIX. Gray Ice
XX. Tomaso and I
XXI. Lucilla and I
XXII. I close my Book
XXIII. Racket Island
XXIV. The Interpolation
XXV. About Sylvia
XXVI. Mother Anastasia
XXVII. A Person
XXVIII. The Floating Grocery
XXIX. Fantasy?
XXX. A Discovery
XXXI. Taking up Unfinished Work
XXXII. Tomaso and Lucilla
XXXIII. The Distant Topsail
XXXIV. The Central Hotel
XXXV. Money makes the Mare go
XXXVI. In the Shade of the Oak
XXXVII. The Performance of my Under-Study
XXXVIII. A Broken Trace
XXXIX. A Soul Whisper?
XL. An Inspiration
XLI. Miss Laniston
XLII. The Mother Superior
XLIII. Was his Heart true to Poll?
XLIV. Preliminary Brotherhood
XLV. I make Coffee and get into Hot Water
XLVI. Going back for a Friend
XLVII. I interest Miss Laniston
XLVIII. In a Cold, Bare Room
XLIX. My Own Way
L. My Book of Travel
LI. A Loose End
LII. I finish the Sicilian Love-Story

THE HOUSE OF MARTHA.

I.
MY GRANDMOTHER AND I.
My grandmother sat in her own particular easy-chair by the open window of her back parlor. This was a pleasant place in which to sit in the afternoon, for the sun was then on the other side of the house, and she could look not only over the smooth grass of the side yard and the flower beds, which were under her especial care, but across the corner of the front lawn into the village street. Here, between two handsome maple-trees which stood upon the sidewalk, she could see something of what was going on in the outer world without presenting the appearance of one who is fond of watching her neighbors. It was not much that she saw, for the street was a quiet one; but a very little of that sort of thing satisfied her.
She was a woman who was easily satisfied. As a proof of this, I may say that she looked upon me as a man who always did what was right. Indeed, I am quite sure there were cases when she saved herself a good deal of perplexing cogitation by assuming that a thing was right because I did it. I was her only grandchild: my father and mother had died when I was very young, and I had always lived with her,--that is, her house had always been my home; and as I am sure there had never been any reason why I should not be a dutiful and affectionate grandson, it was not surprising that she looked upon me with a certain tender partiality, and that she considered me worthy of all the good that she or fortune could bestow upon me.
My grandmother was nearly seventy, but her physical powers had been excellently well preserved; and as to her mental vigor, I could see no change in it. Even when a little boy I had admired her powers of sympathetic consideration, by which she divined the needs and desires of her fellow-creatures; and now that I had become a grown man I found those powers as active and ready as they had ever been.
The village in which we lived contained a goodly number of families of high standing and comfortable fortune. It was a village of well-kept and well-shaded streets, of close-cut grass, with no litter on the sidewalks. Our house was one of the best in the place, and since I had come of age I had greatly improved it. I had a fair inheritance from my mother, and this my grandmother desired me to expend without reference to what I was receiving and would receive from her. To her son's son would come ultimately everything that she possessed.
Being thus able to carry out my ideas concerning the comfort and convenience of a bachelor, I had built a wing