Under the windows were crocuses and daffodils and leaf points of the lilies-of-France showing gaily. Beside each door were sociable little benches inviting the passer-by to stop and chat. Under the eaves hung tambourines ready for a moment's playtime. Doby wondered over these attempts at refinement of living in a land where as yet the bare living itself was not quite certain. "This is a brave little town," he decided. Half a dozen years later there was born near here, at Point Pleasant, that Ulysses S. Grant, whose soldierly courage under difficulties, and whose steadfast purpose to make the best of national disaster, should forever remain a watchword for those struggling to win success. His achievements were brilliant and worldwide. Those of his neighbors were smaller but happily complete; for in a few years more they, too, overcame their handicaps. Warned by rumors of Indians down the river, Doby's father had tied up his flatboat at this hamlet and had brought his wife and son ashore until the waterway became safe again. To return the rather meager hospitality of Ol' Pap Soisson, a French bachelor, who had offered them half of his cabin, Mr. Holman was taking some round stones from the wash of the creek and was building for his host a safe cobblestone chimney. Most of the settlers had chimneys woven like birds' nests, of sticks plastered together with mud, inside and out. When they dried out they became dangerous. A stone one was fire-proof. It could hold the heat, could reflect it into the room, and could cook food better than the plastered one. In the business of piling up masonry for the chimney Doby was first assistant. Ol' Pap Soisson was a poor second. Doby was an unwilling worker, but the bachelor useless. He was too small, too weak, too old. As he himself explained to Doby, "It is of a certainty that I have never yet had enough of the food to make a growth or a strength." His bright eyes measured the boy as if to guess how stocky he himself might become if fed aright. "Greed possesses me when I sit at the savory meals prepared by that so accomplished madam, your mother." He chuckled comfortably as he recalled the breakfasts, the dinners, and the suppers which she had given him. The thought of them helped him to roll up a big stone. Exhausted, but triumphant, he sat upon it and became sociable.