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More than ever I was resolved to be the principal witness in some great matter, as my friend in Ashery Lane had put it. I was eight months with Wright and Baldwin when I was offered a clerkship in the office of Judge Westbrook, at Cobleskill, in Schoharie County, at two hundred a year and my board. I knew not then just how the offer had come, but knew that the Senator must have recommended me.
There was a small gristmill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, an ashery and half a dozen houses, all rudely built, planted in a surrounding of stumps, with the bush encircling all. Asking at the largest shanty for Mr Magarth, the woman he spoke to pointed to a man, bareheaded and in his shirtsleeves, piling boards.
I remember looking in vain for Sally as we passed the Dunkelbergs'. I remember my growing loneliness as the day wore on and how Aunt Deel stood silently buttoning my coat with tears rolling down her cheeks while I leaned back upon the gate in front of the Hacket house, on Ashery Lane, trying to act like a man and rather ashamed of my poor success.
No matter, it pleased him; and they loved the dear old gentleman too well to undeceive him. 'As to the potash business, sir, I fear it is too complicated and expensive to venture upon this year, though the creek is an excellent site for an ashery, and they say the manufacture is highly remunerating. What do you think, father? And they had a conference that diverged far from potash.
Past the foot-bridge, and past the eddy by the great rock, and over the pool into which the creek widened by the old ashery, the mimic fleet sailed safely; while the lads shouted and ran, and strove by the help of long sticks to pilot them all into the little cove by the willow where little Flora was sitting, till even the flower-loving little maiden forgot her treasures, and grew excited like the rest.
The best situation to erect an ashery upon, is the side of a bank, beside a running stream; and if there should be fall enough in the creek to bring a supply of water over head into the leaches, a great deal of labour will be saved. An ash-house, six or eight leach-tubs, a pot-ash kettle, and three or four coolers are all the requisites necessary.
The creek that part of it near which the willows grew, and where the old ashery used to stand had been their daily resort every summer-day all their lives; and they all looked at her with astonishment and dismay, but none of them spoke. "Come home to our mother, boys. Flora, come home." And Shenac lifted her little sister over the foundation of great stones, and beckoned to the boys to follow her.
Then there's the potash thirty dollars a barrel for second quality: less than two and a half acres of hardwood timber will produce a barrel. 'I don't quite understand. 'Next summer, after your logging bee, you'll know what I mean. This creek is as if 'twas made on purpose for an ashery.
I remember that its folded skirt was as big around as my coat sleeve and that Uncle Peabody always grasped it in the middle, with hand about its waist, in a way of speaking, when he carried it after a shower. The rain came on again and with such violence that we were drenched to the skin in spite of the umbrella. It was still raining when we arrived at the familiar door in Ashery Lane.
"I promised to spend the morning in the field with Mr. Wright, if I may have your consent, sir," I said. "Then we shall console ourselves, knowing that you are in better company," said Mr. Hacket. Mr. Dunkelberg called at the house in Ashery Lane to see me after breakfast. "Bart, if you will come with me I should like to order some store clothes and boots for you," he said in his squeaky voice.
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