LIVING BACKWARDS 



would give the hovel and the two big boxes that 

 had been set down at its door for a cocktail. 



I asked the two men who had driven us and 

 the boxes up where I could get some ice and a 

 lemon. They looked at each other as if I had 

 asked them for a French menu. &quot;Ice? &quot; said one 

 of them. &quot; You might git some at the butcher s 

 in Spelldown. It s four miles and a half. There s 

 a spring in the medder yonder, but the lemon 

 crop ain t very good this year.&quot; 



&quot; That s so,&quot; said his companion, wiping his 

 face with his shirt-sleeves, &quot; the potato bugs hurt 

 the young lemons awfully last season.&quot; 



I learned sooner or later that this kind of irony 

 was in the air like the smell of the skunk cabbage. 

 The inside of the hovel was not so dilapidated 

 after all. There were only two rooms and a 

 woodshed. But it was clean and bright and 

 sweet, and scented airs wandered through it. A 

 phoebe-bird sat on the sill of a low window and 

 intimated that I was impertinent. Everything 

 was in humble and homely shipshape order. 

 There were two shakedowns, a pine table, camp- 

 chairs, a Quaker rocker, some trunks, a little 

 book-shelf, a dresser with thick cups and saucers 

 on it, and a small writing-table under the window, 

 over which a chintz curtain was flapping lazily. 

 The big fireplace at the end of the room had 

 some faggots piled ready for lighting. 



I sat down at the window, and surveying the 

 homely surroundings, thought of my bachelor 

 quarters in the city, and had to press my hand 



