For the winter-garden I have no
responsibility: Polly has entire charge of it. I am only required to
keep it heated, and not too hot either; to smoke it often for the
death of the bugs; to water it once a day; to move this and that into
the sun and out of the sun pretty constantly: but she does all the
work. We never relinquish that theory.
As we pass around the house, I discover a boy in the ravine filling a
bag with chestnuts and hickorynuts. They are not plenty this year;
and I suggest the propriety of leaving some for us. The boy is a
little slow to take the idea: but he has apparently found the picking
poor, and exhausted it; for, as he turns away down the glen, he hails
me with,
"Mister, I say, can you tell me where I can find some walnuts?"
The coolness of this world grows upon me. It is time to go in and
light a wood-fire on the hearth.
CALVIN
NOTE.--The following brief Memoir of one of the characters in
this book is added by his friend, in the hope that the record
of an exemplary fife in an humble sphere may be of some service
to the world.
HARTFORD, January, 1880.
CALVIN
A STUDY OF CHARACTER
Calvin is dead. His life, long to him, but short for the rest of us,
was not marked by startling adventures, but his character was so
uncommon and his qualities were so worthy of imitation, that I have
been asked by those who personally knew him to set down my
recollections of his career.
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