All the while Jimmie of the towhead and the thin, wiry legs and arms is grinning at his critic with a wide, snaggle-toothed smile of great affection.
The Blakes’ house stands on the site of an old log hut, of two rooms and a lean-to shed. In digging the cellar they came upon a walled-in grave—the boards almost rotted away—and in it lay a skeleton. Whose? No one knows, for that grave was dug before the time of anyone now living at Many Islands. Was it some Indian warrior laid there to sleep? Was it a settler of the old pioneer days? No one can tell and no one cares. The Blakes built their comfortable eight-room house over his bones and thought no more about them.
Yesterday Mary and I drove to Queensport, the county seat, fifteen miles away, that I might show myself at the bank and the stores where I am to trade this winter. The start was to be early, and I rose at dawn to have breakfast over, the cabin cleaned, and I myself rowed over to the farm. The woods lay wrapped in a heavy mist. Not a wet leaf stirred. The water looked like mouse-colored crêpe, and the sun hung like a big, pink balloon in a sky of gray velvet. But before our start the mists had burned away and the day was glorious.
The road lies through a rolling country, all hills, woods, lakes, and glades. Queensport stands at the head of a chain of lakes. It boasts two banks, a high school, churches of all denominations, and a dozen or so shops and houses set in gardens. We dined at the hotel, the Wardrobe House; we transacted our business at the bank, and turned then to our shopping. We went to the harness shop for bread, to the grocer’s for a spool of thread, to the tailor’s to enquire the cost of a telephone. Then I bethought me of my need for some rag carpet. I did not really want that carpet that day, indeed, I had not the money to pay for it. I only thought of inquiring for it while I was in the town.
We were directed to the hardware shop as the most likely place for carpets, and I had no sooner mentioned my errand when a voice came out from behind a stove saying eagerly:
“I know where you can find just what you’re looking for. My old mother has forty yards of as fine a rag carpet as you could wish to see. Say the word and I’ll drive you right out to the farm and show it to you.”