III

AT JAKE AND MARTIN’S

In the mean time, the evening had been much enjoyed by the brothers who were spending it together in Martin Dyer’s kitchen.  The houses stood side by side, but Mr. Jacob Dyer’s youngest daughter, the only one now left at home, was receiving a visit from her lover, or, as the family expressed it, the young man who was keeping company with her, and her father, mindful of his own youth, had kindly withdrawn.  Martin’s children were already established in homes of their own, with the exception of one daughter who was at work in one of the cotton factories at Lowell in company with several of her acquaintances.  It has already been said that Jake and Martin liked nobody’s company so well as their own.  Their wives had a time-honored joke about being comparatively unnecessary to their respective partners, and indeed the two men had a curiously dependent feeling toward each other.  It was the close sympathy which twins sometimes have each to each, and had become a byword among all their acquaintances.  They were seldom individualized in any way, and neither was able to distinguish himself, apparently, for one always heard of the family as Jake and Martin’s folks, and of their possessions, from least to greatest, as belonging to both brothers.  The only time they had ever been separated was once in their early youth, when Jake had been fired with a desire to go to sea; but he deserted the coastwise schooner in the first port and came home, because he could not bear it any longer without his brother.  Martin had no turn for seafaring, so Jake remained ashore and patiently made a farmer of himself for love’s sake, and in spite of a great thirst for adventure that had never ceased to fever his blood.  It was astonishing how much they found to say to each other when one considers that their experiences were almost constantly the same; but nothing contented them better than an uninterrupted evening spent in each other’s society, and as they hoed corn or dug potatoes, or mowed, or as they drove to the Corners, sitting stiffly upright in the old-fashioned thorough-braced wagon, they were always to be seen talking as if it were the first meeting after a long separation.  But, having taken these quiet times for the discussion of all possible and impossible problems, they were men of fixed opinions, and were ready at a moment’s warning to render exact decisions.  They were not fond of society as a rule; they found little occasion for much talk with their neighbors, but used as few words as possible.  Nobody was more respected than the brothers.  It was often said of them that their word was their bond, and as they passed from youth to middle age, and in these days were growing to look like elderly men, they were free from shame or reproach, though not from much good-natured joking and friendly fun.  Their farm had been owned in the family since the settlement of the country, and the house which Martin