Country Neighbors

								

glance at them. A line of horses stood there, and, she was sure, all the
way up the lane, and she remembered that was the way they had stood when
her mother was buried.
Then some one laughed out, in a way she knew, and she looked down and
saw Cap'n Oliver. He was staring up at her window, as he answered a
neighbor's greeting, and he gave a little oblique nod at her, and
stumped along up the path. At once she recalled herself to the day, and
went downstairs to meet him. It seemed very simple and plain now he had
come.
The neighbors standing in the entry stood aside to let her pass, but she
could scarcely notice them. It began to seem as if she must reach Cap'n
Oliver, and then all would be well. The cap'n was in vigorous condition.
His face looked ruddier, and he was shaking her hand and saying, as if
she had endowed him with her state of mind:--
"Soon be over, Letty, soon be over. Don't you give it a thought."
"No," said Miss Letty, choking, "I won't. I won't give it a thought."
But at that moment Hiram Jackson, who knew everything and was fervidly
anxious to be the earliest herald, came stammering out his eagerness to
tell.
"Say, Miss Letty. Say! you can't have no auction. You won't have no
auctioneer. Old Blaisdell's wife's sister's dead, down to East Branch,
an' he's gone."
Miss Letty, breathless, looked at the cap'n. "Well, there!" she said. It
was in her mind that now she might not need to have the auction at all;
and again she wondered, since she must have it, how she could ever make
up her mind to it again.
"Oh, dear!" she breathed. "I'm sorry."
The cap'n was frowning at her, only because he was so deep in thought.
He threw up his head a little, then, bluffly, as if he had reached a
clearer decision he meant to follow out.
"Not a word, Letty," said he. "Now don't you speak a word. I'm goin' to
auction 'em off myself."
She stared at him, her lips apart, in protest.
"Why, Oliver," she said, "you ain't an auctioneer."
"Well, I shall be after this bout. Now you come straight into the
sittin'-room an' set down in the corner underneath the ostrich egg,
where I can see you good an' plain. An' if I come to anything you want
to bid in, you hold up your finger, an' I'll knock it down to you. You
understand, don't ye, Letty?"
It was hard to realize that she did, she looked so like a frightened
little animal, turning her head this way and that, as if she longed for
leaves to cover her.
"You understand, Letty, don't ye?" the cap'n was asking with great
gentleness; and because she saw at last some sign of distress in his
face also, she quieted, in a dutiful fashion, and nodded at him.
"Yes," she said, "I'll be where you can see me. But I sha'n't bid
nothin' in. I don't prize 'em 'specially more'n I prize everything
together. If I can give up an' go out West, I guess I can get along
without my furniture. Shouldn't you think so?"