"Elijah Nickerson's new house"--as it is still
called, and will be, I suppose, until it ceases to be a house--was
fitted up inside in a way which put you much in mind of a ship's cabin,
and would have delighted the simple heart of good Captain Cuttle. There
was no spare space anywhere thrown away, nor anything suffered to lie
loose. Beckets and cleats, fixed into the walls of the sitting-room,
held and secured against any possible damage the pipes, fish-lines,
dolphin-grains, and sou'westers of the worthy Captain; and here he and
his sat, when he was at home, through the long winter evenings, in
simple and not often idle content. The kitchen, flanked by the
compendious outhouses which make our New England kitchens almost
luxurious in the comfort and handiness of every arrangement, was the
centre of Hepsy Ann's kingdom, where she reigned supreme, and waged
sternest warfare against dirt and disorder. Hence her despotic sway
extended over the pantry, an awful and fragrant sanctuary, whither she
fled when household troubles, or a letter from Elkanah, demanded her
entire seclusion from the outer world, and of whose interior the
children got faint glimpses and sniffs only on special and
long-remembered occasions; the west room, where her father slept when
he was at home, and where the curious searcher might find store of old
compasses, worn-out cod-hooks, condemned gurry-knives, and last year's
fishing-mittens, all "stowed away against time-o'-need"; the spare
room, sacred to the rites of hospitality; the "up-stairs," occupied by
the children and Hepsy Ann's self; and finally, but most important of
all, the parlor, a mysterious and hermetically sealed apartment, which
almost seemed to me an unconsecrated spot in this little temple of the
homely virtues and affections,--a room furnished in a style somewhat
ostentatious and decidedly uncomfortable, swept and dusted on Saturday
afternoons by Hepsy Ann's own careful hands, sat in by the Captain and
her for an hour or two on Sundays in awkward state, then darkened and
locked for the rest of the week.
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