He could no longer laugh with
those who laughed at him. He was an outcast. He told me of
his childhood in the tidy brick house, and of his mother's
passionate orderliness. Her kitchen was a miracle of clean
brightness. Everything was always in its place, and no where
could you see a speck of dust. Cleanliness, indeed, was a
mania with her. I saw a neat little old woman, with cheeks
like apples, toiling away from morning to night, through the
long years, to keep her house trim and spruce. His father was
a spare old man, his hands gnarled after the work of a
lifetime, silent and upright; in the evening he read the paper
aloud, while his wife and daughter (now married to the captain
of a fishing smack), unwilling to lose a moment, bent over
their sewing. Nothing ever happened in that little town, left
behind by the advance of civilisation, and one year followed
the next till death came, like a friend, to give rest to those
who had laboured so diligently.
"My father wished me to become a carpenter like himself.
For five generations we've carried on the same trade, from father
to son. Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your
father's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left.
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