Emily dropped the weeds where she stood, turned about, and walked
through the garden and up the hill, pondering many things.
Supper was strangely quiet that night. Mrs. Gray had asked a single
question: "Reuben, do you want the little house back?"
A glad light leaped into the old man's eyes.
"Em'ly--would you be willin' to?"
After the supper dishes were put away, Mrs. Gray, with a light shawl
over her head, came to her husband on the back stoop.
"Come, dear; I think we'd better go down to-night."
A few minutes later they sat stiffly in the best room of the farmhouse,
while the buxom woman and her husband looked wonderingly at them.
"You wan't thinkin' of sellin', was ye?" began Reuben insinuatingly.
The younger man's eyelid quivered a little. "Well, no,--I can't hardly
say that I was. I hain't but just bought."
Reuben hitched his chair a bit and glanced at Emily.
"Well, me and my wife have concluded that we're too old to transplant--
we don't seem to take root very easy--and we've been thinkin'--would you
swap even, now?"
* * * * *
It must have been a month later that Reuben Gray and his wife were
contentedly sitting in the old familiar kitchen of the little brown
house.
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