Adventures in Contentment

"We're a great people," says Charles Baxter, "but we don't always work at it." "But we talk about it," says the Scotch Preacher. "By the way," says Charles Baxter, "have you seen George Warren? He's up for supervisor." "I haven't yet." "Well, go around and see him. We must find out exactly what he intends to do with the Summit Hill road. If he is weak on that we'd better look to Matt Devine. At least Matt is safe." The Scotch Preacher looked at Charles Baxter and said to me with a note of admiration in his voice: "Isn't this man Baxter getting to be intolerable as a political boss!" Baxter's shop! Baxter's shop stands close to the road and just in the edge of a grassy old apple orchard. It is a low, unpainted building, with generous double doors in front, standing irresistibly open as you go by. Even as a stranger coming here first from the city I felt the call of Baxter's shop. Shall I ever forget! It was a still morning--one of those days of warm sunshine--and perfect quiet in the country--and birds in the branches--and apple trees all in bloom. Baxter whistling at his work in the sunlit doorway of his shop, in his long, faded apron, much worn at the knees. He was bending to the rhythmic movement of his plane, and all around him as he worked rose billows of shavings. And oh, the odours of that shop! the fragrant, resinous odour of new-cut pine, the pungent smell of black walnut, the dull odour of oak wood--how they stole out in the sunshine, waylaying you as you came far up the road, beguiling you as you passed the shop, and stealing reproachfully after you as you went onward down the road.