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Cullud folks jes' mek out de bes' dey could. Some of 'em lived in tents, till dey c'd cut logs an' build houses wid stick-an'-dirt chimbleys. Lotta folks ask me how I come to be called "Mama Duck." Dat be jes' a devil-ment o' mine. I named my own se'f dat. One day when I be 'bout twelve year old, I come home an' say, "Well, gran'mammy, here come yo' li'l ducky home again."
Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long, except maybe frogs or something.
The smoke that curled up from the chimbleys, a wreathin' its way up to the heavens all dead and gone. The bright light that shone out of the winder through the dark a tellin' everybody that there wuz a Home, and some one a waitin' for somebody all dark and lonesome.
"'T ain't everybody can stand in her fore-door an' see the chimbleys o' three child'n's houses without a glass," he tried eagerly to console her. "All ready an' willin' to do their part for you, so as you could let 'Lisha go off and have his chance." "I don't know how it is," she answered, "but none on 'em never give me the rooted home feelin' that 'Lisha has.
"They don't have chimbleys on a snow house!" declared Freddie, pausing in his rolling of the snowball. "They don't have chimbleys on snow houses, 'cause they don't have fires in 'em; do they Bert?" "That's right, Freddie," agreed the older boy. "But maybe, if Flossie wants it, we could put a make-believe chimney on the snow house." "Oh, I do want it awful much!" cried Flossie.
"I'll bet me I'll buy me some lamp chimbleys and heave out this palouser. A feller can't half see what he's doin'," he grumbled as he eyed a large blot on the envelope addressed to the President. "The whole place," sourly, "looks like a widdy woman's outfit."
"Chimney-sweep," said Mr. Jope; "leastways, so apprenticed, as I understand." The pair gazed at me anew. "I asked," said the woman at length, "because this is a poor place for chimbleys." "He's in trouble," Mr. Jope explained; "in trouble along o' killing a Jew." "Oh no, Mr. Jope!" I cried. "I didn't " "Couldn't," interrupted his sister shortly, and fell into a brown study.
We watched th' little ol' island fadin' away behind us, with th' sun sthrikin' th' white house-tops iv Queenstown an' lightin' up th' chimbleys iv Martin Hogan's liquor store. Not wan iv us but had left near all we loved behind, an' sare a chance that we'd iver spoon th' stirabout out iv th' pot above th' ol' peat fire again. Yes, by dad, there was wan, a lad fr'm th' County Roscommon.
But he wasn't bleeding much from his hip it was his arm was giving him fits. We went slow, and the dawn broke with us four miles out of town. It was broad daylight, and early morning noises stirring everywheres, when we drove up in front of an old farmhouse, with big brick chimbleys built on the outside of it, a couple of miles farther on.
When old Smallways died, Tom could think of nothing more striking to say of him than that, "When he was a boy, there wasn't nothing higher than your chimbleys there wasn't a wire nor a cable in the sky!"
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