Chapter 25
The Other William

"It's not so cold now," William Drew said.

"It's the rock," William Pender told him. "It soaks up heat all summer and lets it out slow."

"I never spent much time on this hill," William Drew said. "I work on the north side. Those few houses scattered along the water. You'd hardly call them houses, with your grand city. Your stoneware houses and churches. Even a poor man like you would look on my house as a shack." He laughed.

William Pender saw dying firelight in William Drew's eyes. The man looked like he was thinking of a nice house, not a shack. He was remembering his wife Ada, and their baby May.

"She'll be tucking in her four chicks now," he said gently. The only coal Ada had was a five pound bag by the fire. She used it to save fire from day to day. At night she took four egg-sized pieces. She got them glowing in the fire. Then she scraped them into her iron pot lid.

It put him in mind of a hen tucking its chicks under its wing. She called it saving the fire. He called it tucking in her chicks.

By now Ada would have laid May in her birch cot near the fire pit. Smoke rose through a hole in the roof. The room had flat stones for a floor. It was lit by the fire, and by the glow of a cod oil lamp. The room smelled of smoke, cod oil, and the boughs in the walls.

It was a new house. William Drew had cut the boughs that fall. He cut them from the fir and birch above the harbour's east end. That was where he got his firewood.