The Landlord at Lion's Head — Volume 2Howells, William Dean
General
The Landlord at Lion's Head — Volume 2
Howells, William Dean
Artists -- Fiction; Massachusetts -- Fiction
"Well, I some wish you did. I sh'd like to know how Jeff's improvements
struck you. Of course, I can't judge of 'em so well, but I guess he's
made a pootty sightly thing of it. He told me he'd had one of the leadin'
Boston architects to plan the thing out for him, and I tell you he's got
something nice. 'Tain't so big as old Lion's Head, and Jeff wants to
cater to a different style of custom, anyway. The buildin's longer'n what
she is deep, and she spreads in front so's to give as many rooms a view
of the mountain as she can. Know what 'runnaysonce' is? Well, that's the
style Jeff said it was; it's all pillars and pilasters; and you ride up
to the office through a double row of colyums, under a kind of a portico.
It's all painted like them old Colonial houses down on Brattle Street,
buff and white. Well, it made me think of one of them old pagan temples.
He's got her shoved along to the south'ard, and he's widened out a piece
of level for her to stand on, so 't that piece o' wood up the hill there
is just behind her, and I tell you she looks nice, backin' up ag'inst the
trees. I tell you, Jeff's got a head on him! I wish you could see that
dinin'-room o' his: all white colyums, and frontin' on the view. Why,
that devil's got a regular little theatyre back o' the dinin'-room for
the young folks to act ammyture plays in, and the shows that come along,
and he's got a dance-hall besides; the parlors ain't much--folks like to
set in the office; and a good many of the rooms are done off into soots,
and got their own parlors. I tell you, it's swell, as they say. You can
order what you please for breakfast, but for lunch and dinner you got to
take what Jeff gives you; but he treats you well. He's a Durgin, when it
comes to that. Served in cou'ses, and dinner at seven o'clock. I don't
know where he got his money for 't all, but I guess he put in his
insurance fust, and then he put a mortgage on the buildin'; be as much as
owned it; said he'd had a splendid season last year, and if he done as
well for a copule of seasons more he'd have the whole prop'ty free o'
debt."
Westover could see that the prosperity of the unjust man had corrupted
the imagination and confounded the conscience of this simple witness, and
he asked, in the hope of giving his praises pause: "What has he done
about the old family burying-ground in the orchard?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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