Lest "Boomsher" seem an unusual surname, it must be explained
that the actual name was French and could not be coped with by
Edgewood or Pleasant River, being something quite as impossible
to spell as to pronounce. As the family had lived for the last
few years somewhere near the Killick Cranberry Meadows, they were
called--and completely described in the calling--the Crambry
fool-family. A talented and much traveled gentleman who once
stayed over night at the Edgewood tavern, proclaimed it his
opinion that Boomsher had been gradually corrupted from
Beaumarchais. When he wrote the word on his visiting card and
showed it to Mr. Wiley, Old Kennebec had replied, that in the
judgment of a man who had lived in large places and seen a
turrible lot o' life, such a name could never have been given
either to a Christian or a heathen family,--that the way in
which the letters was thrown together into it, and the way in
which they was sounded when read out loud, was entirely ag'in
reason. It was true, he said, that Beaumarchais, bein' such a
fool name, might 'a' be'n invented a-purpose for a fool family,
but he wouldn't hold even with callin' 'em Boomsher; Crambry was
well enough for'em an' a sight easier to speak.

Stephen knew a good deal about the Crambrys, for he passed their
so-called habitation in going to one of his wood-lots. It was
only a month before that he had found them all sitting outside
their broken-down fence, surrounded by decrepit chairs, sofas,
tables, bedsteads, bits of carpet, and stoves.

"What's the matter?" he called out from his wagon.