Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/131

 "No water," said Silas, "got to shut down till the pond fills up." They sat down instantly, hanging their empty hands over their knees, in an ecstasy of idleness. They managed to finish that log by supper time, but the drought held.

Soon they could saw only by pondfuls. A couple of hours in the early morning, a scant hour after lunch, and somewhat less after supper, in the twilight. Between times Si patched belts, or hoed corn, or sat and smoked, Grandfather pottered around the garden, or sat and smoked as he waited for the pond to fill.

This was delightful—just enough work for exercise, and lots of blameless leisure. But with so many hours to read, Neale ran through at an alarming rate the books he had brought with him. Even "Vanity Fair" didn't hold out forever, and with Dobbin and Amelia finally united, Neale was at the end of his literary resources. Boredom settled down heavily. Si's reiterated anecdotes lost all savor; he had read all the books on the sitting-room book-shelves, or had given them up as hopeless. He felt bound by his contract to be on hand whenever the mill could be run, so that long walks were out of the question.

At last as he sat gloomily killing time trying to whittle a wooden chain, and making a botch of it, he seemed to remember one rainy day when he was a little boy, wandering into a room with another book-case in it. Not being a little girl, he had had small interest in exploring the inside of the house, and where that room was he had forgotten; but if there had been any books in it, they were there still; no single decade ever made any change in that house. It was worth having a look.

Anybody but a Crittenden, dealing with Crittendens, would have gone to Grandfather or Grandmother and asked where that book-case was. But it did not occur to Neale to do that, and if he had thought of the possibility, he would never have done it. That would have meant talk about his wanting to read, about what books he liked, and why he liked them … all sorts of talk from which Neale shrank away as he did from physical pawing-over. He set off silently, with a casual