All the Brothers Were Valiant

MP3 Audio CD. All the Brothers Were Valiant

I


The fine old house stood on Jumping Tom Hill, above the town. It had
stood there before there was a town, when only a cabin or two fringed the
woods below, nearer the shore. The weather boarding had been brought in
ships from England, ready sawed; likewise the bricks of the chimney.
Indians used to come to the house in the cold of winter, begging shelter.
Given blankets, and food, and drink, they slept upon the kitchen floor;
and when Joel Shore's great-great-grandfather came down in the morning,
he found Indians and blankets gone together. Sometimes the Indians came
back with a venison haunch, or a bear steak ... sometimes not at all.

The house had, now, the air of disuse which old New England houses often
have. It was in perfect repair; its paint was white, and its shutters
hung squarely at the windows. But the grass was uncut in the yard, and
the lack of a veranda, and the tight-closed doors and windows, made the
house seem lifeless and lacking the savor of human presence. There was a
white-painted picket fence around the yard; and a rambler rose draped
these pickets. The buds on the rose were bursting into crimson flower.

The house was four-square, plain, and without any ornamentation. It was
built about a great, square chimney that was like a spine. There were six
flues in this chimney, and a pot atop each flue. These little chimney
pots breaking the severe outlines of the house, gave the only suggestion
of lightness or frivolity about it. They were like the heads of impish
children, peeping over a fence....