Then came a change. One of those seasons of bad
and stormy weather which so frequently follow an early spring
settled down upon my spirits and my hillside. It rained, it was
cold, fierce winds blew, and I became more anxious for somebody
to talk to than I had been at any time during the winter.
One night, when a very bad storm was raging, I went to bed
early, and as I lay awake I revolved in my mind a scheme of which
I had frequently thought before. I would build a neat little
house on my grounds, not very far away from my house, but not too
near, and I would ask Jack Brandiger to come there and live.
Jack was a friend of mine who was reading law in the town, and it
seemed to me that it would be much more pleasant, and even more
profitable, to read law on a pretty hillside overlooking a
charming valley, with woods and mountains behind and above him,
where he could ramble to his heart's content.
I had thought of asking Jack to come and live with me,
but this idea I soon dismissed. I am a very particular person,
and Jack was not. He left his pipes about in all sorts of
places--sometimes when they were still lighted. When he came to
see me he was quite as likely to put his hat over the inkstand as
to put it anywhere else. But if Jack lived at a little distance,
and we could go backward and forward to see each other whenever
we pleased, that would be quite another thing. He could do as he
pleased in his own house, and I could do as I pleased in mine,
and we might have many pleasant evenings together.
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