Introduction
the cottages that were occupied was still held back, by spade and hoe, from the encroachments of wild growth, and in the last cottage to be reached, surrounded by every feature of an old-fashioned garden, lived Silas Crabtree. As a child I had feared him, and now I both disliked and admired him; why—as is so often the case—I could not tell.
The man and his house were not unlike. The cottage was a long, low building, one and a half stories high. A window on each side of the door barely showed beneath the projecting roof of a narrow porch extending the full length of the front. There was a single step from the porch to the ground. From the roof projected two squat dormer windows. The shingles were darkened by long exposure, and patches of moss grew about the eaves. Silas was like this. The windows and door and long low step recalled his eyes, nose, and mouth, overtopped by low projecting brows and unkempt hair, that were well represented by the cottage roof with its moss and dormers. So far the house
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