He
was believed to possess a secret charm that made his fish-bait
irresistible. Certainly his fortune in this matter was superior to that
of any other frequenter of the bass nooks below the dam.
And now he had waxed so heavy of purse that a woman could come between
us,--a selfish woman, I made no doubt, pampered survival of a pernicious
and now happily destroyed system, who would not only unsettle my
domestic tranquillity, but would, in all likelihood, fetch another alien
ferment into our already sorely tried existence as a town needing
elevation. It seemed, indeed, that we were never to be done with these
consequences.
Separated from my house by a stretch of weedy lawn was a shambling
structure built years before by one Azariah Prouse, who believed among
other strange matters that the earth is flat and that houses are built
higher than one story only at great peril, because of the earth's
proneness to tip if overbalanced. Prouse had compromised with this
belief, however, and made his house a story and a half high, in what I
conceive to have been a dare-devil spirit. The reckless upper rooms were
thus cut off untimely by ceilings of sudden slope, and might not be
walked in uprightly save by persons of an inconsiderable stature.
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