A catboat, with sails close-hauled, was making her
way out of the channel, a wake of snowy foam churning behind her in the
blue water. Through the door of the shed swept a breeze that rustled
the shavings on the floor and blended the fragrance of newly cut wood
with the warm perfume of sweet fern from the adjoining meadow.
For all its untidiness and confusion, its litter of boards, tools and
battered paint pots, the shop was unquestionably one of the most homey
corners of the Spence cottage. Its rough, unsheathed walls, mellowed
to a dull buff tone, were here and there adorned with prints culled by
Willie from magazines and newspapers. Likenesses of Lincoln and
Roosevelt flanked the windows with an American flag above them, and a
series of battleships and army scenes beneath. The inventor's taste,
however, had not run entirely to patriotic subjects, for scattered
along the walls, where shelves sagged with their burden of oilcans,
putty, nails and fishing tackle, were a variety of nautical
reproductions in color--a prize yacht heeling in the wind; a reach of
rough sea whose giant combers swirled about a wreck; glimpses of marsh
and dune typical of the land of the Cape dweller.
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