Read Thoreau at Devil's Perch for Free Online Page B

reason an educated man cannot work with his hands, Mrs. Tuttle.”
    Adam laughed. “Oh, I am certain Gran agrees with you on that score, Henry. Despite my own fine education, she asked me just yesterday to lend a hand with the apple harvest next month, and I would very much like to oblige her.”
    I was sitting in the high-back settle by the great fieldstone fireplace, sketching, and my ears pricked up like an attentive dog’s. Does Adam plan to stay in Plumford after our grandfather has mended after all? Not that such a decision on his part would change my own plans. Then again, what worthwhile plans do I have? Unless I go along with the terms stated in the letter I received yesterday and commence work within the week, I shall lose the portrait commission I had been promised before departing from New York. But how can I leave Plumford before Grandfather is well enough to do without me? I am afraid I shall have to forego the commission.
    Henry got up from the bleached oak table, most likely to avoid further questions from Granny, and strolled over to the fireplace to get a closer look at the old flintlock musket adorning the massive lintel.
    â€œThat was my Great Grandfather Tuttle’s trusty weapon in the War for Independence,” Adam informed him.
    â€œDoes it still fire?”
    â€œIt does indeed,” Granny stated most emphatically. “I recently used it to shoot at a fox sniffin’ around the hen house. Just missed the critter, I regret to say.”
    â€œWell, I did not regret it,” pretty little Harriet said softly as she poured Adam another cup of tea. (She is always right there to serve him when he is in need of sustenance, I have noted.) “I would be greatly upset to see a wild creature killed.”
    â€œThen be forewarned to stay away from the Reverend Mr. Upson,” Henry said. “I am sure Miss Bell shall do her best to avoid him after peering into his sack of horrors Monday.”
    I went on drawing in silence, for I saw no reason to tell Mr. Thoreau that I allow Mr. Upson to call on me whenever he begs leave to. How can I be so uncharitable as to refuse a lonely widower such as he?
    â€œWhat are you scratching away at so industriously?” Thoreau asked me.
    â€œI am sketching , not scratching away like some chicken.”
    He left his position by the fireplace to come look over my shoulder. I did not mind, for my sketch was progressing quite well. I had drawn, with perfect perspective, the yawning hearth outfitted with a lug pole, a chain and pulley, and a long crane. A kettle, suspended by a hook from the crane, hung above a small mound of coals. I had managed, with the adroit use of a mere pencil, to make the coals glow .
    â€œAh, a study of your cousin,” Henry said.
    Admittedly, Adam was also in the drawing, but well off to the side and sketched in lightly, without any of the attention to detail I had given the fieldstones and brick and cooking implements. He just happened to be in the outer edge of my viewing range, thus I had included him.
    â€œIt is a study of a passing way of life,” I told Henry, perhaps a little primly. “More and more fireplaces are being blocked up and replaced by cooking stoves.”
    â€œYou might consider such a convenience for yourself, Gran,” Adam said to his grandmother. “I would gladly buy and install a stove for you.”
    â€œYou do that, dearie, and I will take a sledge to it, by gory!” she retorted. “There will be no iron monster in my kitchen, saturating the food with poisonous fumes.”
    Adam, not one to argue futilely, went back to sipping his tea. And Henry went back to studying my sketch. “You have talent enough,” he concluded.
    â€œ More than enough,” I said, demonstrating my insufferable lack of modesty concerning my talent.
    â€œMore than enough talent to do what?” Henry asked me.
    â€œWhy, to make my own way in the world. I barely