Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
At once the crowd invaded the living room, and after a glance around
Ethel ordered every bit of the furniture, with the exception of two
antique but comfortable horse-hair sofas, carried away to the barn and
stored in the loft. It did not take long to clear the big room, and then
the Widow Clark swept out and began to scrub the floor and woodwork,
while school-teacher took her men into the right wing and made another
clearing of its traps.
This room interested the girl very much. In it Joe was born and frail
Mrs. Wegg and her silent husband had both passed away. It had two broad
French windows with sash doors opening on to a little porch of its own
which was covered thickly with honeysuckle vines. A cupboard was built
into a niche of the thick cobble-stone wall, but it was locked and the
key was missing.
Upstairs the girl had the rubbish removed for the first time in a
generation. The corded bedstead in the north room was sent to join its
fellows in the barn loft, and Ned Long swept everything clean in
readiness for the scrubbers.
Then, while Widow Clark and Nora cleaned industriously--for the blind
woman insisted on helping and did almost as much work as her
companion--the "men folks" proceeded to the barn and under the
school-teacher's directions uncrated the new furniture and opened the
bales of rugs and matting. Lon Taft was building new steps to the front
porch, but Old Hucks and Ned and McNutt reverently unpacked the "truck"
and set each piece carefully aside. How they marveled at the enameled
beds and colored wicker furniture, the easy chairs for lounging, the
dainty dressers and all the innumerable pretty things discovered in
boxes, bales and barrels, you may well imagine. Even Ethel was amazed
and delighted at the thoughtfulness of the dealer in including
everything that might be useful or ornamental in a summer home.
The next few days were indeed busy ones, for the girl entered
enthusiastically upon her task to transform the old house, and with the
material John Merrick had so amply provided she succeeded admirably.
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There was once an honest journeyman tailor, by name Labakan, who learned his trade with an excellent master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him.
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