The Brick Moon, and Other StoriesHale, Edward Everett
Science
The Brick Moon, and Other Stories
Hale, Edward Everett
Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Meanwhile, I had bought my hand-cart of the man who
owned it. I left a little pile of heavy cedar logs on
the outside, spiking them to each other indeed, that they
should not be easily moved. And to them and to my posts
I padlocked the hand-cart; nor was it ever disturbed
during my reign in those regions. So I had easy method
enough when I wanted a bundle or two of laths, or a
bunch of shingles, or anything else for my castle, to
bring them up in the cool of the evening, and to
discharge my load without special observation. My pile
of logs, indeed, grew eventually into a blind or screen,
which quite protected that corner of the church alley
from the view of any passer-by in Fernando Street.
Of that whole summer, happy and bright as it all was,
I look back most often on the first morning when I got
fairly to work on my new home. I told my mother that for
some weeks I should have to start early, and that she
must not think of getting up for my breakfast. I told
her that there was extra work on a job up-town, and that
I had promised to be there at five every day while the
summer lasted. She left for me a pot of coffee, which I
promised her I would warm when the time for breakfast and
dinner came; and for the rest, she always had my dinner
ready in my tin dinner-pail. Little did she know then,
sweet saint! that I was often at Fernando Street by half-
past three in the first sweet gray of those summer days.
On that particular day, it was really scarcely light
enough for me to find the nail I drew from the plank
which I left for my entrance. When I was fairly within
and the plank was replaced, I felt that I was indeed
"monarch of all I surveyed." What did I survey? The
church wall on the north; on the south, my own screen of
spruce boards, now well dry; on the east and west, the
ten-foot fences which I had built myself; and over
that on the west, God's deep, transparent sky, in which
I could still see a planet whose name I did not know. It
was a heaven, indeed, which He had said was as much mine
as his!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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