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Updated: May 14, 2025
With this end in view he began a study of these languages, the importance of the subject so growing upon him that he neglected his business. Day after day he labored, putting a Bible and a Concordance upon a pile of soap-boxes near the door of his store and poring over them between customers, the store meantime taking care of itself.
Most of the men are squatting gravely with bath-towels over their shoulders they make convenient wraps. Men and women alike are smoking either huge green cheroots or small brown ones. Our seats are right in front of the stage and consist of a row of soap-boxes. Joyce's mother clutches me in horror. "I can't sit down there," she says with a gasp; "I shall fall over."
I would not have supposed that so big a voice could have come out of so frail a body; but I was reminded that Abell had been practicing on soap-boxes a good part of his life. He was one of these shouting evangelists only his gospel was different. He sang: Arise, ye pris'ners of starvation! Arise, ye wretched of the earth! For justice thunders condemnation, A better world's in birth.
Some woman had been busy there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the common wooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, probably made of old soap-boxes, were all covered with American nankeen of a soft yellowish-brown, with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades, the table-cover, and the piano-cloth all repeated the same colors, in the same cheap material.
They hardly spoke till after they had eaten. The Indian is always hungry, for the reason that his food supply is insufficient and his clothing poor. When they sat on the cracker-boxes and soap-boxes which served as seats, they spoke. They told him of the chieftain's message. They said they had come to assist him in driving his cattle back across the hills; that he must go.
Next came a small, rusty stove with an oven for baking; then, under the window, an unpainted table; and on the wall beyond, a series of hooks from which were suspended various articles of clothing and coils of rope. Empty soap-boxes supplied the place of chairs. With nose uplifted and a growing disgust on his features, Percy surveyed the cramped, dingy room. "How do you like it?" asked Spurling.
I've been often chilled to the bone, and I've seen Walter's fingers blue with cold, he said. 'You'll run up soon and tell him to haul all the soap-boxes out of the fireplace, and build up a big fire to be ready for the morning, lighted the first thing. 'Very well, uncle; but I don't think I'll let you up-stairs to-morrow. 'It's for Walter, not for me.
He was given an old arm-chair while the others sat upon soap-boxes and nail-kegs. Cobb's Twins, William and James, were there, Emmanuel Howe, the minister's son, and Bob Wood who still sang bass in the village church choir. The store door was opened letting in a gust of cold air which made all draw nearer to the red-hot stove. The newcomer was Samuel Hill, Benoni's son.
But, of co'se, I couldn't fetch her to-day, an' me a-comin' specially to pick out her Christmus gif'. She's jest like a child. Ef she s'picions befo' hand what she's a-goin' to git, why, she don't want it. "I notice when I set on these soap-boxes, my pockets is jest about even with yo' cash-drawer, Rowton. Well, that's what we're here for.
Over our heads armies of migrating birds made a network like a great floating scarf of beads, each bead a bird: and the blue water round the slow-gliding Enchantress was crowded with boats of so many hitherto unknown sorts, that they might have been visiting craft from another world: feluccas with sails red or white, or painted in strange patterns, or awninged; some with rails like open trellis work of many colours, over which dark faces shone like copper in the sunshine; rowing boats, "galleys" with fluttering flags, and old soap-boxes roughly lined with tin, in which naked imps of boys perilously paddled.
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