OF JANUARY IN THE NORTH—OF THE WINTER PASTIMES OF MR. AND MRS. CHARLES WALNUT—AND OF A PENETRATING CHILL
SCENE I of this drama of American manners is laid in the small and more or less flourishing town of East Rockpile in the northern state of Massachusetts, Illinois, Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, Ohio or Connecticut. Or Rhode Island or Michigan. Or New Hampshire or New York.
The month is January and there are three feet of snow on the ground. The temperature is so low that the mercury has shriveled in the thermometer bulb until it looks like a small silver cherry in a cocktail. The feet of passers-by make the same sort of squeak in the frozen snow that a mouse makes when it unexpectedly falls six feet behind a bedroom wall at two o’clock in the morning.
Mrs. Charles Walnut, wife of East Rockpile’s popular contractor and builder, is seated before a roaring open fire in the parlor of the Walnut home reading a mailorder catalogue. Directly behind her chair an oil stove emanates heat-waves and an oil-stove odor. In spite of this Mrs. Walnut shivers perceptibly from time to time and hunches herself more firmly into the woolen shawl that is wrapped around her shoulders. She is studying the portion of the catalogue devoted to Gardening Tools.
There is a loud thumping and kicking outside. The front door opens and closes with a bang, and a moment later Mr. Walnut enters the room chafing his ears briskly. “My gorry, it’s cold!” he observed, moving his feet up and down in a gingerly manner.
“Take off your overshoes, Charles, and don’t track snow all over the house,” replies Mrs. Walnut “What made you so late? Did you stop at the drug store? Wasn’t there any mail? I believe that furnace has gone out or something, Charles, and you’d better go down and see if you can’t do something. I had to light the oil stove to keep my back from freezing.”
“That furnace is all right,” declares Mr. Walnut, sniffling loudly and unbuckling his overshoes. “’Taint any use trying to heat anything in this weather. There wasn’t anybody at the drug store on account of it being so cold. The train was late on account of froze switches or something. There wasn’t any mail except three seed catalogues. My gorry, Emma, one of those catalogues has got a picture of a tomato eight inches through. The name of it’s the Great Ruby. We want to get a lot of those Great Rubies in May, Emma.”
“Yes,” says Mrs. Walnut despondently, “and when we get around to picking ’em, they’ll be about the size of crab apples, and we’ll feel like Great Rubes.”
“It’s the cold weather that makes you feel that way, Emma,” says Mr. Walnut compassionately. “In April, when the grass begins to get green and the robins begin to sing at sun-up, you’ll feel better.”
“Maybe so, Charles,” says Mrs. Walnut, “but that’s three months away. Sometimes I wish I could go to sleep like a bear in December and sleep until April. Go down and fix the furnace and then come to bed. It’s the only warm place in the house.”
Mr. Walnut leaves the room obediently, clumps noisily down the cellar stairs, and is soon heard operating on the furnace and depleting his coal supply. Mrs. Walnut listens with a quick succession of shivers to the shrill squeaking of sleigh-runners on the snow. The fire-whistle sounds three hoarse, bronchial notes, marking the arrival of nine o’clock and of a meaningless something known as curfew. Mrs. Walnut picks up the oil stove, clutches her shawl tightly against her chest, goes out into the tomb-like hall, and is heard mounting the front stairs stiffly.