it was when i began to go to the district school that i first heard of ferman henry and his house. just after we had waded through the little stream that ran across the road, we came in full sight of the place. the house stood about half-way up the hill that rose gently from the little creek, and in front of it was a large oak-tree that spread its branches out over the porch and almost to the road. there were alder-bushes and burdocks along the fence,—or, rather, where the fence was meant to be; for when i first knew the place almost half of it was gone, and the remaining half was never in repair. on one side of the house was a well, and in this was a wooden pump. we used often to stop here to get a drink,—for there never yet was a boy that could pass by water without stopping for a drink. i remember that the pump always had to be primed, the 233valves were so old and worn; and when we poured water in at the top to start it, we had to work the handle very hard and fast, until we got quite red in the face, before the water came, and then we had to keep the handle going, for if we stopped a single moment the water would run down again and leave the pump quite dry. i never knew the time when the pump was in repair, and i do not know why it was that we boys spent our breath in priming it and getting water from the well. perhaps it was because we had always heard that the water was so very cold; and perhaps, too, because we liked to stop a moment at the house,—for ferman henry and his family were the “cleverest” people we knew. city people may not know that in farmington we used the word “clever” to mean kind or obliging,—as when we spoke of a boy who would give us a part of his apple, or a neighbor who would lend us his tools or do an errand for us when he went to town.
i had always been told that ferman henry was a very shiftless man. the neighbors knew that he would leave his buggy or his harness out of doors under the apple-trees all summer long, 234exposed to sun and rain; and that he did not like to work. our people thought that everyone should not only work, but also like to work simply for the pleasure it brought. i recall that our copy-books and readers said something of this sort when i went to school; and i know that the people of farmington believed, or thought they believed, that this was true.
ferman henry was a carpenter, and a good one, everybody said, although it was not easy to get him to undertake a job of work; and if he began to build something, he would never finish it, but leave it for someone else when it was partly done. he was a large, fat man, and when i first knew him he wore a colored shirt, and trousers made of blue drilling with wide suspenders passing over his great shoulders; sometimes one of these was broken, and he often fastened the end to his trousers with a nail that slipped through a hole in the suspender and in the cloth, where a button was torn off. he often wore cowhide boots, with his trousers legs sometimes inside and sometimes outside; but generally he was barefoot when we went past the house. i do not remember 235seeing him in winter-time, perhaps because then he was not out of doors under the big oak-tree. at any rate, my memory pictures him only as i have described him.
when i first heard of ferman henry, i was told about his house. this was begun before the war, and he was building it himself. he began it so that he might be busy when he had no other work to do; and then too his family was always getting larger, and he needed a new home. he had worked occasionally upon the house for six or seven years, and then he went out as a soldier with the three-months’ men. this absence hindered him seriously with his work; but before he went away he managed to inclose enough of the house so that he was able to move his family in, intending to finish the building as soon as he got back.
the house was not a large affair,—an upright part with three rooms above and three below, and a one-story kitchen in the shape of an l running from the side. but it was really to be a good house, for ferman henry was a good carpenter and was building it for a home.
after he got back from the war he would 236take little jobs of work from the neighbors now and then, but still tinkered at his house. when any work of special importance or profit came along, he refused it, saying he must first “finish up” his house.
i can just remember the building as it appeared when i commenced going to the district school. the clapboards had begun to brown with age and wind and rain. the front room was done, excepting as to paint. the back room below and the rooms upstairs were still unfinished, and the l was little more than a skeleton waiting for its bones to be covered up. the front doors and windows had been put in, but the side and back windows were boarded up, and no shutters had appeared. back of the house was a little barn with a hen-house on one side, and on the other was a pen full of grunting pigs, drinking swill, growing fat, climbing into the trough, and running their long snouts up through the pen to see what we children had brought for them to eat.
i remember ferman henry from the time when i first began to go to school. he was fat and “clever,” and always ready to talk with any of the boys; and he would tell us to come 237into the yard and take the dipper and prime the pump, whenever we stopped to get a drink. he generally sat outside, under the big oak-tree, on the bench that stood by the fence, where he could see all who passed his door.
mrs. henry was almost as large and fat as he, and she too was “clever” to the boys. she wore a gray dress that was alike from head to foot, and she never seemed to change it or get anything new. they had a number of children, though i cannot tell now how many. the boys were always falling out of the big oak-tree and breaking their arms and carrying them in a sling. two or three of those i knew went to school, and i believe that some were large enough to work out. the children who went to school never seemed to learn anything from their books, but they were pleasant and “clever” with their dinners or their marbles, or anything they had. we boys managed to have more or less sport at their expense. the fact that they were “clever” and cheerful never seemed to make the least difference to us, unless to give the chance to make more fun of them on that account. they never seemed to bring much dinner to school, excepting 238bread-and-butter, and the bread was cut in great thick slices, and the butter never seemed very nice. i know it was none of aunt mary’s.
we boys could tell whether folks were rich or poor by the dinners the children brought to school. if they had pie and cheese and cake and frosted cookies, with now and then a nice ripe apple, we knew that they were rich. we thought bread-and-butter the poorest kind of a lunch; and sometimes we would stop on the way and open our dinner-pails and throw it out.
we always knew the henrys were poor. they had no farm, only a bit of land along the road that ran a little way up the hill. they kept one cow, and sometimes a horse, and two or three long-eared hounds that used to hunt at night, their deep howls filling the valley with doleful sounds.
everyone said that ferman henry would work only when his money was all gone, and that when he had enough ahead for a few weeks he would give up his job. sometimes he would work at the saw-mill and get a few more boards for his house, or at the country store and get nails or glass. after he came back from his three-months’ service he was 239given a small pension, and for a few days after every quarterly payment the family lived as well as the best, and sometimes even bought a little more material for the house.
year after year, as the family grew, he added to the building, sometimes plastering a room, sometimes putting in a window or a door; and he always said it would be finished soon.
but however poor they were, every time a circus came near the town the whole family would go. the richest people in the village had never been to as many circuses as the henry boys; and even if they knew nothing about the romans or the greeks, they could tell all about the latest feats of skill and strength.
i often saw ferman henry tinkering around the mill, where he came to do some odd job to get a sack of meal or flour. once i well remember that the water-wheel had broken down and we had to stop the mill for several days; my father tried to get him to come and fix the wheel, but he said he really had not the time,—that he must finish up his house before cold weather set in.
as long as i went up and down the country road to school, i saw ferman henry’s unfinished 240house. we boys used to speculate and wonder as to when it would be done, and how it would look when it finally should be finished. our elders always told us that ferman henry was too shiftless and lazy ever to complete his house, and warned us by his example. when we left our task undone, or made excuses for our idleness, they asked us if we wanted to grow up as shiftless and lazy as ferman henry.
after i left the district school, and went the other way to the academy in the town, i still used to hear about ferman henry’s house. the people at the stores would ask him how the work was coming on; and he always answered that he would plaster his house in the fall, or paint it in the spring, or finish it next year.
before i left farmington, the growing henry family seemed to fill every crack and crevice of the house. the kitchen had been inclosed, but the porch was not yet done. the shutters were still wanting, the plastering was not complete, and the outside was yet unpainted; but he always said that he would go at it in a few days and get it done.
the last time i went to farmington i drove past the house. ferman henry sat upon the little bench under the big oak-tree. a pail of water, with a dipper in it, stood by the pump. mrs. henry came out to see if i had grown. a group of children were grubbing dirt in the front yard. i drew up for a moment under the old tree, in the spot where i had so often rested when a child. ferman henry seemed little changed. the years had slipped over him like days or weeks, and scarcely left a furrow on his face or whitened a single hair. at my questioning surprise, he told me that the small children in the yard belonged to his sons who lived upstairs. i looked at the house, now falling to decay. the roof was badly patched, the weather-boards were loose; the porch had not been finished, and the building had never seen a coat of paint. i asked after his health and prosperity. he told me that all the family were well, and that he was getting on all right, and expected to finish his house that fall and paint it in the spring. out in the back yard i heard the hogs grunting in the pen, as in the old-time days. i saw the laughing children 242playing in the dirt. mrs. henry stood on the porch outside, and ferman sat on the old bench and smiled benignly on me as i drove away. then i fell to musing as to who was the wiser,—he or i.
