Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
Fishermen dried their fish here on long flakes. Around three sides of the dock went a stone wall, against which the tide washed and rippled, mildly grumbling because the wall was stubborn and would not budge an inch. On the stone wall bordering the upper end of the dock rested that side of Aunt Stanshy's barn in which were the fastened door below and the fastened window above.
He ceased his tune suddenly for he caught an outcry. "Where does that come from!" asked Will. "Back of the barn, I guess. There it is again! It is from the dock, I know, sure as I'm born." He sprang across Aunt Stanshy's garden and then leaped a fence which separated her estate from an open piece of ground bordering the dock and used for various purposes.
"I did not," replied Charlie, "ask Aunt Stanshy if we might have the barn!" That was an omission indeed, and the club appreciated it, as "Aunt Stanshy" was well known by the boys. All the sunshine seemed to disappear suddenly and a cloud was on every thing. Aunt Stanshy's name in full was Constantia, but, like the crown-jewels of England, it was only used on very important occasions.
The house and barn both belonged to Aunt Stanshy, property that had been willed her by her father, Solomon Macomber, whose body slept under the wings of a blue-stone cherub in the cemetery. Her nephew, Charles, on the death of his wife, came to live with Aunt Stanshy, bringing his infant heir. When the father died, little Charlie was left in Aunt Stanshy's care.
Don't you know the man who goes fishin' from your Aunt Stanshy's barn?" "O yes, I know you." It was the junior member of the new firm, "Tyler & Fisher." "Are you a patrolman, Mr. Fisher?" asked Will. "I am at spells, when a man at the station may be sick. You see I can't go fishin' in this storm, and it comes handy to be employed as a substitute at the station. But what are you here for?"
He planted an eye between the slats of his watch-tower and then looked off. The view was neither extensive nor varied, mostly one of mud-flats. A thick fog had come from the sea and stretched like a curtain across the mouth of the dock in the rear of Aunt Stanshy's premises.
The plank, alias the reserved seats, did not have a firm support. Its weakness had been noticed, but not remedied. "Who's the one to fix the bench?" inquired Sid. "The governor," replied Wort. But the governor was not one who believed in Aunt Stanshy's motto, "Do to-day's things to-day."
"Glad to touch solid ground," thought Will, "though I be in my stocking-feet." He hurried to Aunt Stanshy's door, which had been left unlocked for his admittance, and opening it, stepped upon the entry oil-cloth. "Tick tick! Who comes here?" the old clock now seemed to say, loudly, solemnly ticking. "How I shall muddy this sacred floor! Can't help it, though!
"It is my fear that we are all wrong," said Aunt Stanshy. "I know something about this river, and about fogs, and about people rowing round like fools and getting nowhere." The members of the club now looked serious, and Will was provoked at Aunt Stanshy's remark. "Halloo there!"
After some effort, and more tribulation, there appeared a splendid piece of naval architecture, a monitor with a turret, the deck bordered with a twine-railing, two sails hanging down from Aunt Stanshy's small broom. "That broom makes me think of what I learned at school when I was a girl." "What was that?" "I am not much of a scholar, but I remember this.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking