"You think this beats city life?" he observed, whittling slowly. "Well, that depends on what you want. If you like noise and action, the city's the place. We once lived in a flat where there was a piano at one end of the hall and two phonographs at the other. Then there was a man across the air-shaft who practised on the clarinet, and a professional singer up-stairs. Besides this, when the season was right, we had a hand-organ concert every few minutes on the street. When everything was going at once it was quite a combination. The trolley in front and the Elevated railway behind helped out, too, besides the automobiles, and the newsboys and more or less babies that were trying to do their part. Some people would be lonesome without those things, I suppose." Westbury whittled reflectively. "I like to be where it's busy," he commented, "but I guess a fellow could get tired of too much of it. It's pretty nice to live where you can look out on the snow and the woods, and where you can hear it rain, and in the spring wake up in the night and listen to the frogs sing." Westbury's eye ranged about the room, taking in the pictures and bric-à-brac and the bookshelves along the wall. "I wonder what Captain Ben Meeker would think to see his old kitchen turned into a library," he went on, thoughtfully. "Not many books in his day, I guess; maybe one or two on the parlor table, mostly about religion. They were pretty strong on religion, back in that time, though Captain Ben, I guess, didn't go in on it as heavy as his wife. Captain Ben was more for hunting, and horses, and dogs, and the man that could cut the most grass in a day. The story goes that when Eli Brayton, the shoemaker, wanted to marry Molly Meeker, Captain Ben wouldn't give her to him because he said Eli hadn't proved himself a man yet. Brayton was boarding in the family and working in the little shop that used to stand across the road. Aunt Sarah Meeker, Captain Ben's wife, wanted the shoemaker in the family because he was religious; but Captain Ben said, 'No, sir, he's got to prove himself a man before he can have Molly.' Well, one day Eli Brayton saw a fox up in the timber, and came down to the house and told Captain Ben about it. 'Let me have your gun,' he said, 'and I'll go up and get that chap that's been killing your chickens lately.' 'All right,' says Captain Ben, 'but you won't get him.' Eli didn't say anything, but took the old musket and slipped up there, and by and by they heard a shot and pretty soon he came down the hill with Mr. Fox over his shoulder. They went out on the step to meet him, and he threw the fox down in front of Molly Meeker. 'There's some fur for you,' he said, 'and I guess he won't catch any more chickens.' Captain Ben went up to Eli and slapped him on the shoulder. 'Now you've proved yourself a man,' he says, 'and you can have Molly.' That was my wife's grandmother. She was an only child and the Meekers and the Braytons lived here together.