FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42  
43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   >>   >|  
counted out upon the marble slab of that fashionable flower store the sum of seventy-five cents. The florist--blessings on him--is said not to have undeceived the little fellows, but to have duly honored their "order," and the biggest and most costly "Gates Ajar" piece to be had in the market went to the hospital, and helped to bury Larks. Of course, as is customary in the case of all authors who have written one popular book, requests for work at once rained in on the new study on Andover Hill. For it soon became evident that I must have a quiet place to write in. In the course of time I found it convenient to take for working hours a sunny room in the farm-house of the Seminary estate, a large, old-fashioned building adjoining my father's house. In still later years I was allowed to build over, for my own purposes, the summer-house under the big elm in my father's garden, once used by my mother for her own study, and well remembered by all persons interested in Andover scenery. This building had been for some years used exclusively as a mud-bakery by the boys; it was piled with those clay turnovers and rolls and pies in whose manufacture the most select circles of Andover youth delighted. But the bakery was metamorphosed into a decent, dear little room, about nine by eleven, and commanding the sun on the four sides of its quadrangle. In fact, it was a veritable sun-bath; and how dainty was the tip-drip of the icicles from the big elm-bough, upon the little roof! To this spot I used to travel down in all weathers; sometimes when it was so slippery on the hill behind the carriage-house (for the garden paths were impassable in winter) that I have had to return to primitive methods of locomotion, and just sit down and coast half the way on the crust. Later still, when an accident and crutches put this delightful method of travelling out of the question, the summer-house (in a blizzard I delighted in the name) was moved up beside my father's study. I have, in fact, always had an out-of-door study, apart from the house I lived in, and have come to look upon it as quite a necessity; so that we have carried on the custom in our Gloucester house. We heartily recommend it to all people who live by their brains and pens. The incessant trotting to and fro on little errands is a wholesome thing. Proof-sheets, empty ink-stands, dried-up mucilage, yawning wood-boxes, wet feet, missing scissors, unfilled kerosene lamps, untimely
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42  
43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Andover

 

father

 

garden

 

delighted

 
summer
 

bakery

 

building

 

return

 

winter

 

methods


locomotion

 

primitive

 

impassable

 
veritable
 
quadrangle
 
dainty
 

eleven

 

commanding

 

slippery

 

weathers


carriage

 

travel

 

icicles

 
blizzard
 

wholesome

 

errands

 
sheets
 
trotting
 

people

 
recommend

brains
 

incessant

 
stands
 

scissors

 
missing
 

unfilled

 

kerosene

 
untimely
 

mucilage

 

yawning


heartily

 
method
 

delightful

 

travelling

 
question
 

crutches

 

accident

 

necessity

 
carried
 

custom