Part 19 (1/2)

”So she did, so she did!” murmured the man. ”I'm an ongrateful thing; so I be.” There was a long pause. The old man drummed with his fingers on the trunk and watched a cloud sail across the skylight. The woman gently swung the cradle to and fro. ”If only they wan't goin' ter be--sold!”

she choked, after a time. ”I like ter know that they're where I can look at 'em, an' feel of 'em, an'--an' remember things. Now there's them quilts with all my dress pieces in 'em--a piece of most every dress I've had since I was a girl; an' there's that hair wreath--seems as if I jest couldn't let that go, Seth. Why, there's your hair, an' John's, an' some of the twins', an'--”

”There, there, dear; now I jest wouldn't fret,” cut in the old man quickly. ”Like enough when you get used ter them other things on the wall you'll like 'em even better than the hair wreath. John's wife says she's taken lots of pains an' fixed 'em up with pictures an' curtains an' everythin' nice,” went on Seth, talking very fast. ”Why, Hannah, it's you that's bein' ongrateful now, dear!”

”So 'tis, so 'tis, Seth, an' it ain't right an' I know it. I ain't a-goin' ter do so no more; now see!” And she bravely turned her back on the cradle and walked, head erect, toward the attic stairs.

John came at five o'clock. He engulfed the little old man and the little old woman in a bearlike hug, and breezily demanded what they had been doing to themselves to make them look so forlorn. In the very next breath, however, he answered his own question, and declared it was because they had been living all cooped up alone so long--so it was; and that it was high time it was stopped, and that he had come to do it!

Whereupon the old man and the old woman smiled bravely and told each other what a good, good son they had, to be sure!

Friday dawned clear, and not too warm--an ideal auction-day. Long before nine o'clock the yard was full of teams and the house of people. Among them all, however, there was no sign of the bent old man and the erect little old woman, the owners of the property to be sold. John and Mrs.

John were not a little disturbed--they had lost their father and mother.

Nine o'clock came, and with it began the strident call of the auctioneer. Men laughed and joked over their bids, and women looked on and gossiped, adding a bid of their own now and then. Everywhere was the son of the house, and things went through with a rush. Upstairs, in the darkest corner of the attic--which had been cleared of goods--sat, hand in hand on an old packing-box, a little old man and a little old woman who winced and shrank together every time the ”Going, going, gone!”

floated up to them from the yard below.

At half-past one the last wagon rumbled out of the yard, and five minutes later Mrs. John gave a relieved cry.

”Oh, there you are! Why, mother, father, where _have_ you been?”

There was no reply. The old man choked back a cough and bent to flick a bit of dust from his coat. The old woman turned and crept away, her erect little figure looking suddenly bent and old.

”Why, what--” began John, as his father, too, turned away. ”Why, Edith, you don't suppose--” He stopped with a helpless frown.

”Perfectly natural, my dear, perfectly natural,” returned Mrs. John lightly. ”We'll get them away immediately. It'll be all right when once they are started.”

Some hours later a very tired old man and a still more tired old woman crept into a pair of sumptuous, canopy-topped twin beds. There was only one remark.

”Why, Seth, mine ain't feathers a mite! Is yours?”

There was no reply. Tired nature had triumphed--Seth was asleep.

They made a brave fight, those two. They told themselves that the chairs were easier, the carpets softer, and the pictures prettier than those that had gone under the hammer that day as they sat hand in hand in the attic. They a.s.sured each other that the unaccustomed richness of window and bed hangings and the profusion of strange vases and statuettes did not make them afraid to stir lest they soil or break something. They insisted to each other that they were not homesick, and that they were perfectly satisfied as they were. And yet--

When no one was looking Grandpa Burton tried chair after chair, and wondered why there was only one particular chair in the whole world that just exactly ”fitted;” and when the twilight hour came Grandma Burton wondered what she would give to be able just to sit by the old cradle and talk with the past.

The newspapers said it was a most marvelous escape for the whole family.

They gave a detailed account of how the beautiful residence of the Honorable John Burton, with all its costly furnis.h.i.+ngs, had burned to the ground, and of how the entire family was saved, making special mention of the honorable gentleman's aged father and mother. No one was injured, fortunately, and the family had taken up a temporary residence in the nearest hotel. It was understood that Mr. Burton would begin rebuilding at once.

The newspapers were right--Mr. Burton did begin rebuilding at once; in fact, the ashes of the Burton mansion were not cold before John Burton began to interview architects and contractors.

”It'll be 'way ahead of the old one,” he confided to his wife enthusiastically.

Mrs. John sighed.

”I know, dear,” she began plaintively; ”but, don't you see? it won't be the same--it can't be. Why, some of those things we've had ever since we were married. They seemed a part of me, John. I was used to them. I had grown up with some of them--those candlesticks of mamma's, for instance, that she had when I was a bit of a baby. Do you think money can buy another pair that--that were _hers_?” And Mrs. John burst into tears.

”Come, come, dear,” protested her husband, with a hasty caress and a nervous glance at the clock--he was due at the bank in ten minutes.