taken place under her very nose were unknown to this faded, crooning old
gentlewoman, whom the eighteenth century had neglected to take away with
the rest of its odd traps. She had no patience with newfangled notions.
The old ways and the old times were good enough for her. She had never
seen a steam engine, though she had heard "the dratted thing" screech in
the distance. In her day, when gentlefolk traveled, they went in
their own coaches. She didn't see how respectable people could bring
themselves down to "riding in a car with rag-tag and bobtail and
Lord-knows-who." Poor old aristocrat The landlord charged her no rent
for the room, and the neighbors took turns in supplying her with meals.
Towards the close of her life--she lived to be ninety-nine--she grew very
fretful and capricious about her food. If she didn't chance to fancy
what was sent her, she had no hesitation in sending it back to the giver
with "Miss Jocelyn's respectful compliments."

But I have been gossiping too long--and yet not too long if I have
impressed upon the reader an idea of what a rusty, delightful old town
it was to which I had come to spend the next three or four years of my
boyhood.

A drive of twenty minutes from the station brought us to the door-step
of Grandfather Nutter's house. What kind of house it was, and what sort
of people lived in it, shall be told in another chapter.




Chapter Five--The Nutter House and the Nutter Family