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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
her seven little ones crowded and slept. It
was an everlasting miracle to Martin how it was accomplished, and from
her side of the thin partition he heard nightly every detail of the going
to bed, the squalls and squabbles, the soft chattering, and the sleepy,
twittering noises as of birds. Another source of income to Maria were
her cows, two of them, which she milked night and morning and which
gained a surreptitious livelihood from vacant lots and the grass that
grew on either side the public side walks, attended always by one or more
of her ragged boys, whose watchful guardianship consisted chiefly in
keeping their eyes out for the poundmen.
In his own small room Martin lived, slept, studied, wrote, and kept
house. Before the one window, looking out on the tiny front porch, was
the kitchen table that served as desk, library, and type-writing stand.
The bed, against the rear wall, occupied two-thirds of the total space of
the room. The table was flanked on one side by a gaudy bureau,
manufactured for profit and not for service, the thin veneer of which was
shed day by day. This bureau stood in the corner, and in the opposite
corner, on the tables other flank, was the kitchen--the oil-stove on a
dry-goods box, inside of which were dishes and cooking utensils, a shelf
on the wall for provisions, and a bucket of water on the floor. Martin
had to carry his water from the kitchen sink, there being no tap in his
room. On days when there was much steam to his cooking, the harvest of
veneer from the bureau was unusually generous. Over the bed, hoisted by
a tackle to the ceiling, was his bicycle. At first he had tried to keep
it in the basement; but the tribe of Silva, loosening the bearings and
puncturing the tires, had driven him out. Next he attempted the tiny
front porch, until a howling southeaster drenched the wheel a night-long.
Then he had retreated with it to his room and slung it aloft.
A small closet contained his clothes and the books he had accumulated and
for which there was no room on the table or under the table. Hand in
hand with reading, he had developed the habit of making notes, and so
copiously did he make them that there would have been no existence for
him in the confined quarters had he not rigged several clothes-lines
across the room on which the notes were hung. Even so, he was crowded
until navigating the room was a difficult task. He could not open the
door without first closing the closet door, and vice versa. It was
impossible for him anywhere to traverse the room in a straight line. To
go from the door to the head of the bed was a zigzag course that he was
never quite able to accomplish in the dark without collisions. Having
settled the difficulty of the conflicting doors, he had to steer sharply
to the right to avoid the kitchen. Next, he sheered to the left, to
escape the foot of the bed; but this sheer, if too generous, brought him
against the corner of the table. With a sudden twitch and lurch, he
terminated the sheer and bore off to the right along a sort of canal, one
bank of which was the bed, the other the table. When the one chair in
the room was at its usual place before the table, the canal was
unnavigable. When the chair was not in use, it reposed on top of the
bed, though sometimes he sat on the chair when cooking, reading a book
while the water boiled, and even becoming skilful enough to manage a
paragraph or two while steak was frying. Also, so small was the little
corner that constituted the kitchen, he was able, sitting down, to reach
anything he needed. In fact, it was expedient to cook sitting down;
standing up, he was too often in his own way.
In conjunction with a perfect stomach that could digest anything, he
possessed knowledge of the various foods that were at the same time
nutritious and cheap. Pea-soup was a common article in his diet, as well
as potatoes and beans, the latter large and brown and cooked in Mexican
style. Rice, cooked as American housewives never cook it and can never
learn Martin Eden page 90 Martin Eden page 92 |