by saving the money that other young men
spent for cigars. He was full of moral maxims
for boys. When he came to our house on busi-
ness, he quoted "Poor Richard's Almanack"
to me, and told me he was delighted to find a
town boy who could milk a cow. He was par-
ticularly affable to grandmother, and when-
ever they met he would begin at once to talk
about "the good old times" and simple living.
I detested his pink, bald head, and his yellow
whiskers, always soft and glistening. It was
said he brushed them every night, as a woman
does her hair. His white teeth looked factory-
made. His skin was red and rough, as if from
perpetual sunburn; he often went away to
hot springs to take mud baths. He was no-
toriously dissolute with women. Two Swedish
girls who had lived in his house were the worse
for the experience. One of them he had taken
to Omaha and established in the business
for which he had fitted her. He still visited
her.

Cutter lived in a state of perpetual warfare
with his wife, and yet, apparently, they never
thought of separating. They dwelt in a fussy,
scroll-work house, painted white and buried in
thick evergreens, with a fussy white fence and

[[239]]

p238 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p239w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p240

v?