for we had
forgotten all about lamps or candles.

For the next week we were two busy and happy people. I rose about
half-past five and made the fire,--we found so much wood on the shore,
that I thought I should not have to add fuel to my expenses,--and
Euphemia cooked the breakfast. I then went to a well belonging to a
cottage near by where we had arranged for water-privileges, and filled
two buckets with delicious water and carried them home for Euphemia's
use through the day. Then I hurried off to catch the train, for, as
there was a station near Ginx's, I ceased to patronize the steamboat,
the hours of which were not convenient. After a day of work and
pleasurable anticipation at the office, I hastened back to my home,
generally laden with a basket of provisions and various household
necessities. Milk was brought to us daily from the above-mentioned
cottage by a little toddler who seemed just able to carry the small tin
bucket which held a lacteal pint. If the urchin had been the child of
rich parents, as Euphemia sometimes observed, he would have been in his
nurse's arms--but being poor, he was scarcely weaned before he began to
carry milk around to other people.

After I reached home came supper and the delightful evening hours,
when over my pipe (I had given up cigars, as being too expensive and
inappropriate, and had taken to a tall pipe and canaster tobacco) we
talked and planned, and told each other our day's experience.

One of our earliest subjects of discussion was the name of our
homestead. Euphemia insisted that it should have a name. I was quite
willing, but we found it no easy matter to select an appropriate title.
I proposed a number of appellations intended to suggest the character of
our home. Among these were: "Safe Ashore," "Firmly Grounded," and some
other names of that style, but Euphemia did not fancy any of them. She
wanted a suitable name, of course, she said, but it must be something
that would SOUND like a house and BE like a boat.

"Partitionville," she objected to, and "Gangplank Terrace," did not suit
her because it suggested convicts going out to work, which naturally was
unpleasant.

At last, after days of talk and cogitation, we named our house "Rudder
Grange."

To be sure, it wasn't exactly a grange, but then it had such an enormous
rudder that the justice of that part of the title seemed to over-balance
any little inaccuracy in the other portion.

But we did not spend all ou