An Embarrassment of Riches by James Howard Kunstler Read Free Book Online Page A

Uncle and kicked Bilbo soundly upon the shin.
    â€œAiyeee!” howled Bilbo, and the next thing I knew, Neddy was upon Uncle, all flashing teeth and slaver. Bilbo importuned the dwarf to stop while Bessie honked shrilly in the general melee. At last, all combatants ceased as Bilbo bellowed out the command to desist. Afterward, he held the two sides of his head as though they might split apart.
    â€œA dram, my little apple,” he murmured. The harelip poured him a jar and he downed it, then groaned. “That’s better.” He squinched his eyes in obvious pain. “We get to [O2]little news of the day here in … the country. Please do not force me to take measures that you would (ahem) … not live to see me regret,” he concluded, and his meaning was inescapable.
    For the next several hours we were kept busy transferring our vital supplies from the keelboat to shore. To obviate any question of escape, Bilbo had Uncle (“Brother,” I called him) and I bound to each other, my right wrist to his left and ditto our ankles, which permitted us to labor in an awkward manner.
    When we had unloaded Megatherium , she was light enough to raise off her shoal. Bilbo ran lines off her bow and stern and secured them to a pair of sturdy oaks ashore. Then, working the trunk of a young beech tree into the plaint sand beneath her keel, Bilbo managed to lever her off the shoal. It was a procedure with which he clearly enjoyed prior experience.
    Finally, all five of us manned the lines and hauled the boat through the silty shallows around the head of the Island and down the lee shore to a small cove. It was the dwarf’s misfortune to have to labor in water up to his neck. To my shame, I could not help noticing the full figure of the otherwise frightful Bessie. From the neck up she was a monster; but from the shoulders down she was an outstanding specimen of the young female of her species. My eyes were hopelessly riveted to the sight of those fleshy orbs clingingly revealed inside the wet fabric of her shabby calico dress.
    Our craft was anchored in the little cove alongside a flatboat of recent vintage. We were forced to return to the head of the island and commence portaging our supplies and equipments, their booty, that is to say, down a quarter-mile-long path to the pirate’s lair, this lair being a most singular habitation.
    The little cottage in its sunny glade of oak and walnut was constructed entirely from the timbers and planks of abducted river craft. Here, for instance, in place of a shutter, was the transom of a flatboat, its very name, Plain Jane , visible in faded yellow paint. In place of posts supporting the modest portico were the lateen masts of an half dozen scuttled gundalows, the cleats and running tackle brazenly in place as though they were objects of decoration. The motley clapboards, some red, some green, some white-washed, others varnished or weathered gray, were salvaged from the bulwarks of captured prizes and bore the appellations of their plundered namesakes: the Goforth , the Livonia , the Westering Star , and the pathetic Child of Destiny . The vision of a plank inscribed Megatherium nailed up amongst them filled me with gall.
    But I was also struck by the undeniably charming aspect of this dwelling in the wilderness. Whatever their barbarity, swinishness, or habits of turpitude, one could not help but admire the domestic art evinced by the little cottage. In its dooryard grew a profusion of wild flowers—yellow trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) , little white spring-beauties (Claytonia virginica) , lovely wood sorrel (Oxalis montana) , trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) , red lousewort (Pedicularis canadensis) , scarlet columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) , cranesbill (Geranium maculatum ), while three kinds of phlox (glaberrima, pilosa, maculate) bloomed in the window boxes. Violet-green bank swallows (Riparia riparia) swerved in the afternoon sunlight. Deep in the