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.
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