mmer.
The gate flapped on its hinges, the fences were broken down, and the
stone walls were full of gaps. His pipe, and a snarling rough-haired
dog, were his only companions. Hour after hour he sat on the side
steps looking across the sloping meadows that separated his place from
Amanda Dalton's; hour after hour he puffed his pipe and gazed on the
distant hills and the sparkling river; gazed and gazed--whether he saw
anything or thought anything, remembered anything, or even dreamed
anything, nobody could guess, not even Amanda Dalton, who was good at
guessing, having very few other mental recreations to keep her
mother-wit alive.

Caleb Kimball, as seen on his doorstep from Amanda Dalton's sink
window, was but a speck, to be sure, but he was her nearest neighbor;
if a person whose threshold you never cross, and who never crosses
yours, can be called a neighbor. There were seldom or never meetings
or greetings between the two, yet each unconsciously was very much
alive to the existence of the other. In days or evenings of solitude
one can make neighbors of very curious things.

The smoke of Amanda's morning fire cried "Shame" to Caleb's when it
issued languidly from his kitchen chimney an hour later. Amanda's
smoke was like herself, and betokened the brisk fire she would be
likely to build; Caleb's showed wet wood, poor draught, a fallen brick
in the chimney.

Later on in the morning Caleb's dog would sometimes saunter down the
road and have a brief conversation with Amanda's cat. They were
neither friends nor enemies, but merely enlivened a deadly, dull
existence with a few casual remarks on current topics.

Once Caleb had possessed a flock of hens, but in the course of a few
years they had dwindled to one lonely rooster, who stalked gloomily
through the wilderness of misplaced objects in the Kimball yard, and
wondered why he had been born.

Amanda pitied him, and flung him a surreptitious handful of corn from
her apron pocket when she met him walking dejectedly in the road
halfway between the two houses. So encouraged he extended his rambles,
and one afternoon Amanda, looking out of her window, saw him stop at
her gate and hold a tete-a-tete with one of her Plymouth Rock hens.
The interview was brief but effective. In a twinkling he had told her
of his miserable life and his abject need of sympathy.

"There are times," he said, "when, I give you my word, I would rather
be stewed for dinner than lead my present