THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD

By William Dean Howells




Part II.


XXVII.

Jackson kept his promise to write to Westover, but he was better than his
word to his mother, and wrote to her every week that winter.

"I seem just to live from letter to letter. It's ridic'lous," she said to
Cynthia once when the girl brought the mail in from the barn, where the
men folks kept it till they had put away their horses after driving over
from Lovewell with it. The trains on the branch road were taken off in
the winter, and the post-office at the hotel was discontinued. The men
had to go to the town by cutter, over a highway that the winds sifted
half full of snow after it had been broken out by the ox-teams in the
morning. But Mrs. Durgin had studied the steamer days and calculated the
time it would take letters to come from New York to Lovewell; and, unless
a blizzard was raging, some one had to go for the mail when the day came.
It was usually Jombateeste, who reverted in winter to the type of
habitant from which he had sprung. He wore a blue woollen cap, like a
large sock, pulled over his ears and close to his eyes, and below it his
clean-shaven brown face showed. He had blue woollen mittens, and boots of
russet leather, without heels, came to his knees; he got a pair every