His `` den '' was a comfortable place , its one window so shadowed by a huge poplar that the room had a grotto-like effect of emerald gloom . I came to know it well , for , at Uncle Dick 's invitation , I did my studying there and browsed at will among his classics . We soon became close friends . Uncle Dick had always `` chummed with the masters , '' as he said , but our friendship went deeper . For my own part , I preferred his company to that of any young man I knew . There was a perennial spring of youth in Uncle Dick 's soul that yet had all the fascinating flavour of ripe experience . He was clever , kindly , humorous and , withal , so crystal clear of mind and heart that an atmosphere partaking of childhood hung around him . I knew Uncle Dick 's outward history as the Bayside people knew it . It was not a very eventful one . He had lost his father in boyhood ; before that there had been some idea of Dick 's going to college . After his father 's death he seemed quietly to have put all such hopes away and settled down to look after the farm and take care of his invalid stepmother . This woman , as I learned from others , but never from Uncle Dick , had been a peevish , fretful , exacting creature , and for nearly thirty years Uncle Dick had been a very slave to her whims and caprices . `` Nobody knows what he had to put up with , for he never complained , '' Mrs. Lindsay , my landlady , told me . `` She was out of her mind once and she was liable to go out of it again if she was crossed in anything . He was that good and patient with her . She was dreadful fond of him too , for all she did almost worry his life out . No doubt she was the reason he never married . He could n't leave her and he knew no woman would go in there . Uncle Dick never courted anyone , unless it was Rose Lawrence . She was a cousin of my man 's .
I 've heard he had a kindness for her ; it was years ago , before I came to XXXXX .
Bayside Dick Lawrence Lindsay Nobody caprices death flavour landlady withal