Page:Sheila and Others (1920).djvu/101

Rh hearth and home (his heart must have ossified long ago, she had commandeered shortly after their vacancy by No. One. Mrs. Dack, No. Two, was of Irish extraction and the Sinn Fein type of mind. She had penetrated our isolated community in the capacity of cook for a wealthy New York family who were simulating the simple life, in vogue just then, and all Hickory's skill and cunning in the baiting of hooks availed him nothing when his own turn came. He was approved, appropriated and partly reformed before awakening to the full seriousness of the situation.

He merits a chapter to himself. His large inexpressiveness, his keen eye under the shaggy, gray brows, somehow suggested to me a trapped giant; and indeed he was that. One of the innumerable, pathetic things trapped by tyrannous circumstance.

Even the large amount of nervous energy his second wife lavished upon his numerous weaknesses failed to exhaust her supply and she spent the residue in setting up sundry conflagrations in our erstwhile peaceful neighborhood. The picturesquely tumble-down cottage which she had made Hickory resuscitate and whitewash, nestling in among a grove