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But for the men, on week days, there is little to do except to "putter" about the house, banking its foundations with dry seaweed as a precaution against searching no'theasters, whitewashing the barns and outbuildings, or fixing things in the vegetable cellar where the sticks of smoked herring hang in rows above the barrels of cabbages, potatoes, and turnips.
"Where you've got the Christian life and spirit written down as bein' like a quiet, peaceful home, free from all distrust, and like that, why don't you change it to a good safe anchorage, where the soul can ride forever without fear of breakers or no'theasters or the dangers besettin' the mariner on a lee shore. They'll understand that; it gets right home to 'em.
And what blowed 'em in? Why, the wind, sartin! And whose wind was it? The Almighty's, that's whose! Now then! if the Almighty didn't intend to have dead leaves around why did he put trees for 'em to fall off of? If he didn't want straws and seaweed and truck around why did He send them everlastin' no'theasters last November? Did that idea ever strike you?"
My uniform is the huntin' case kind; fits in better with church sociables and South Denboro no'theasters. If I wore one of those vests like yours Abbie'd make me put on a red flannel lung-protector to keep from catchin' pneumonia. And she'd think 'twas sinful waste besides, runnin' the risk of sp'ilin' a clean biled shirt so quick. Won't I look like an undertaker, sittin' alongside of you?"
The weeds grew high about its foundations; the sparrows built nests behind such of its shutters as had not been ripped from their hinges by February no'theasters; its roof grew bald in spots as the shingles loosened and were blown away; the swallows flew in and out of its stone-broken windowpanes.
He stood the no'theasters and Scotch drizzles till January, and then he heads for Key West and comfort. Said his heart still beat warm for his native village, but his feet was froze or words similar. He cal'lated to be back in the spring. Then the Reverend Fisher got a call to somewheres in York State, and felt he couldn't afford not to hear it.
"Zing! here comes one of the Almighty's no'theasters, same as we're likely to have to-morrer, and the consarned yard is just as dirty as ever. Ain't that so?" I looked at the yard. "It seems to be about as it was," I agreed, with some sarcasm. Lute was an immune, so far as sarcasm was concerned. "Yup," he said, triumphantly. "Now, Dorindy, she's a good, pious woman.
He cited this skipper and that as examples, and carried them through no'theasters off Hatteras and typhoons in the Indian Ocean. The room, in spite of the open window, grew thick with pipe smoke, and the argument was punctuated by thumps on the desk and chair arms, and illustrated by diagrams drawn by the captain's forefinger on the side of the dresser.
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