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It was as smooth and glassy as if Aunt Stanshy's flat iron had been over it and pressed every wrinkle and ripple down. The air was light. The smoke from the houses and the steam from the only tug that the commerce of the town could afford to support fell, and fluttered downward in thin veils.
Several people indeed "caught" Will Somers, in that way, that morning, and wondered what he was doing, running bare-headed. He carried his point, though, captured Sid, and led him back to the house. "Now, Sid," exclaimed Will, on his way to Aunt Stanshy's "there has been trouble in the Up-the-Ladder Club, I learn, and I want to fix it up, and you will help me, will you not?"
He had a "voice," and he had a guitar, so that his "serenades" were famous; and he set Aunt Stanshy's heart all in a flutter one night when, awaking about twelve, she heard his well-known voice leading off in a serenade, while he twanged his guitar to the tune, "O dearest love, do you remember?" Will Somers was popular in a very short time with every body.
The old gray heads, whose possessors occupied that village-throne of wisdom, the jackknife-carved bench by Silas Trefethen's stove, prophesied "a spell of weather." "Storm brewin'! I feel it in my bones," declared Simes Badger, squinting at the vane on Aunt Stanshy's barn and then at the gray, scowling clouds above. The wind was from the "nor'-east."
I'll give you a kiss for that," and Aunt Stanshy's young lover came up to her and in his delight gave her a kiss. Of a tuft of cotton Charlie had made a head. Another tuft furnished a body; two more supplied arms to work with, and two more supplied legs to stand on. Charlie put a three-cornered hat on Santa's head and tied together the parts of his body with a girdle of pink worsted.
A pail of freshly-drawn water, Arctic cold, and from an upper window, administered freely to the offenders, had been known to produce a healthy effect. Aunt Stanshy's remedies for various troubles might be vigorous, but they were generally effective. There was not much passing in the lane, that stormy day.
That touched him up, and he grabbed his knives and pitched them into the dock. It was a queer sight to see them fish in that barrel floatin' away. But then the rum was in him and maddened him. When he had left, it was Aunt Stanshy's turn to do suthin'. I heard it all, for I was in the yard doin' a few chores for Stanshy. Fust, there was a slam in the barn chamber.
An organ in church played by Prof. Jump-up-and-down is nothing compared with such a north-easter; Charlie heard the grand music of the wind. By and by he heard Aunt Stanshy's step on the stairs.
The boys agreed to their teacher's plan. Sid was specially enthusiastic. Will Somers said he would help. Aunt Stanshy had promised to open the rooms of her house, and one December night, when the sky was like the dark face of an Oriental beauty, hung all over with golden jewelry, the White Shields and their friends met at Aunt Stanshy's.
Billy Grimes and Pip Peckham were serving as horses, and soldiers also, pulling along the president and sharing the broom-handle between them. Whether that handle might be a "musket" or a "spear," no one could say. Charlie served as a body-guard, now looking at Aunt Stanshy's window and then glancing in pride at grandsir's sword.
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