I was not a guest there: I paid my room-rent and board just as I should
have done anywhere else, but I had all the comforts of a home, and
enjoyed a thousand advantages that money could not buy. I told Mrs.
Dillon all my troubles, and found kindly sympathy and advice; she
encouraged me in all my ambitions, mended my shirts, and went with me
when I bought my clothes. Inside of a month, I felt like one of the
family, called Mrs. Dillon "mother," and blessed my lucky stars that I
had found them.
Dillon had run a good many years, and was heartily tired of it, and he
seldom passed a nice farm that he did not call my attention to it,
saying: "Jack, now there's comfort; you just wait a couple of
years--I've got my eye on the slickest little place, just on the edge of
M----, that I am saving up my pile to buy. I'll give you the 'Roger
William' one of these days, Jack, say good evening to grief, and me and
mother will take comfort. Think of sleeping till eight o'clock,--and no
poor steamers, Jack, no poor steamers!" And he would reach over, and
give my head a gentle duck as I tried to pitch a curve to a front corner
with a knot: those Hinkleys were powerful on cold water.
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