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“ABSOLUTELY left!” said Mr. Howard—“missed the
stage after all my hurry; and now I can't get to Edmondtown
to-day, and by to-morrow Jarvis will have gone
west, and my rent in his pocket! Well—”

“One may say `well' to almost everything,” said my
stepmother gently.

“Ay, if one says it in patience—which I didn't. But I
don't precisely know how I'm to get along without that
money, there's the truth. McLoon has hoaxed all my
tenants here except Barrington into paying me no rent till
our litigations are settled; and to prosecute and turn them
out would cost just about as much as it would come to.
No easy work, neither,—that fellow O'Reilly keeps a loaded
gun, and swears he'll shoot the first man that attempts to
oust him; and he's just good enough to do it.”

“O pray don't go near him!” said we, by no means of
opinion that life should be risked to gain the means of
living.

“I mightn't be any better off if I got him out,” said my
father,—“the next tenant would like enough follow suit.
If all the people together don't checkmate me, it will be a
wonder! and if it was only myself it wouldn't be much
matter if they did.”

“But papa,” said Kate, “you know we are never sad nor
cast down if you are not; and as you told me once these
are but trifles—just think how well we are, and how happy,
in spite of it all. And as to being checkmated,” she added

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smiling, “the queen can make any number of diversions, and
Grace and I are the willingest of all little pawns,—it would
be a wonder if we couldn't uncheckmate ourselves papa.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Howard a little bitterly, “if one wasn't
tied hand and foot! Cut off all a man's ways of raising
money or almost of living, and then tell him to pay!—
McLoon would contrive some sort of a debtor's prison in
any country, I believe.”

“Not quite,” said my stepmother—“better starve out of
doors than in the Fleet,—and I have no idea that we shall
do either. I am sure a decree has gone forth to the contrary.”

My father drew a long breath that half said she was
right and half that she knew nothing about it.

“So am I sure—when I'm in my calm senses,—once in a
while this multitude of cares and arrangements presses
upon me till I get bewildered, and then the world seems
upside down when it's only my poor head.”

Mrs. Howard let her slight fingers rest upon his forehead,
where so much rougher things had had their sway,
but she said nothing; and stood looking at the fire with all
a woman's unselfish sorrow in her face.

My father's eyes had taken the same direction, but the
fire said different things to him—or he took them differently;
for while my stepmother looked through larger and
brighter tears, his face cleared up; and at length he said
with a smile,

“There is magnetism in some people's fingers, let who
will deny it! I who sat down here believing myself a poor
man, am suddenly deluded into thinking that I am richer
than anybody else.” And bringing the little hand appreciatingly
to his lips, my father looked brightly towards
Kate and me; and our tears were not the less ready that
their source was sweetened.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Howard after a pause, “since I am
here, I may as well go off to Wiamee and see if there is such
a thing as a man to be had; for Adam McKee and I must
dissolve partnership—I can't stand him any longer.”

“O papa,” said Kate as he reached the door, “what if
you were to take a basket and bring us some eggs?”

He stopped and looked round, the cloud coming back a
little.

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“I haven't a bit of change my dear.”

“I have got some!” I exclaimed, “I have got that half
dollar that you gave us before you went away the last time,
papa.”

“Better keep that Gracie,” said my stepmother, “we
might want it more. We can do very well without the
eggs,” she added smiling to my father; who gave us a look
that was all sorrowful in its affection, and went.

“It's such a pity we haven't chickens of our own again,
mamma!” I said. “Why doesn't papa buy some?”

“It's cheaper to buy eggs, Gracie.”

“O mamma! do you think so? have you forgotten the
dozens of eggs Ezra Barrington used to bring us—and all
for nothing?”

“But the hens didn't live upon nothing; and we have no
Ezra Barrington now, but only a man who would perhaps
steal both corn and eggs.”

“It's an astonishing disadvantage to poor people not to
have a little money!” said Kate. “This buying in small
quantities, and wearing out one's best things because just
at the moment one can't get second best;—and now in this
instance—we are doing without economical comforts because
we can't afford to have them! I think there's a good
deal of humbug about it.”

She walked to the window and stood looking out.

“Katie,” I said following her, “do you feel disposed to
go with me to the peach-trees now?”

“Not in the least.”

“But hadn't we better? Papa won't have time before he
goes away, and it will be too late when he comes home.
It's a fine cloudy day, too.”

“Yes I will go,” she said; “but here is another of the
small delusions poor people are under. To imagine that
the fruit you and I must thin out, can ever be profitable!
I wish we had the money the walls cost!”

“It's not worth while to go back to that now dear,” said
Mrs. Howard,—“you know `when the best things are not
attainable, the best must be made of those that are.' I
am very sorry you should have to do anything that you
don't like, but the day is not hot—may be the air will do

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you good. And you know we found the fruit money very
well worth having last year.”

“My dear mamma,” said Kate laughing, “pray don't be
sorry that I must do something I don't like—it's very
good for me,—what I care most about is that I can't do
something I like better. I would rather sit down and read
than stand up and pick off little apricots and peaches. And
the money is worth having—though I never can see that it
makes much difference. Come Gracie—have you got the
scissors?”

So passed the morning. Then came Mr. Howard and
dinner, and after it a long conversation.

“Did you find a man, papa?” said Kate.

“I found so much else my dear that I didn't even look
for one.”

“Didn't look when you went on purpose!”—

“No.—I wish you had my dislike of exclamation points,
Kate.”

“But you see papa,” I said, “she has tired herself with
the peaches this morning, and we were thinking that perhaps
you would find somebody that could do it.”

“I will before long,” said Mr. Howard, taking her hand
in his. “And you needn't either of you have touched the
fruit—I didn't mean you should—I am very sorry you are
tired.”

“It hasn't hurt us papa,” said Kate, her eyes giving quick
answer to his change of tone. “But what did you find at
Wiamee?”

“A good reason for being always patient, Kate—even
when one is left by a stage-coach. If I had not been left,
we should have been checkmated with a witness.”

He went on to tell us that upon going into a store in
that little town, the first thing he saw was a paper signed
by Self & Mulhawl advertising the whole contents of our
house to be sold at auction on the following Monday. And
this was Thursday afternoon.

“So that I have just time,” he concluded, “to see Phibbs
and set him to work. I hope it may not be too late now,
but if I had got off to Edmondtown it would have been,
without question; and we should have known nothing of it
till the sheriff came with his red flag.”

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“But what has become of the injunction?” said Mrs.
Howard.

“And what can Mr. Phibbs do?” said Kate.

“Don't know I'm sure—one thing nor t'other; but lawyers
can find something to do in every case,—if they can't
they aren't worth much. So I must try not to miss the
stage to-morrow, for that would be bad.”

Mr. Phibbs, the chief lawyer of our region, did not disappoint
my father's expectations: that is, he found something
to do; and Mr. Howard came home in high spirits.

“It's all arranged, and Phibbs is to bring a replevin,—
so Self & Mulhawl will get little good by their unrighteous
proceedings.”

“What is a replevin?” said Kate.

“I don't more than half know, myself,” he replied, “but
that doesn't matter. It's a long stick my dear, to push
these people away from our front door—that's all we need
understand. There must be an appraisement though, that I
may know in what amount I must give security.”

“What for?”

“For fear I should run away and defraud Self & Mulhawl
of their `just rights'—which I'd give them if I didn't call
myself a gentleman.”

“But security!” said Mrs. Howard, her face falling again,—
“you'll never be able to get it!”

“Why won't I? there's half a dozen people would give
it in a moment—Adler, and Egerton, and I don't know who.”

“I'm sure I don't. I wish they may not have all heard
the proverb `Let go thy hold when a wheel runs down
hill.'”

“By your leave my dear, that is a speech of Lear's fool.”

“May it not be a proverb for all that?” said my stepmother
smiling; “and Mr. Adler wouldn't be the first man
that has taken a fool's advice. But I hope it will turn out
as you say.”

Monday morning came, clear, bright, and calm—we a
little feverish. The mere appraisement was a disagreeable
affair, even if it went no further; and as to womankind's
schooling itself into the belief of all Mr. Howard and Mr.
Phibbs said, that was out of the question. So with some
little trepidation we saw the wand of our clock fairy

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approach the decimal,—what strange conjuration would then
come over our household? We took our work and sat
down to await it.

A little before the charmed hour appeared the sheriff
(who was just at the end of his term) and the man who
would succeed him,—this last had come for a lesson and to
have all remnants of the business transferred to his hands.
A novice he was; but Mr. Cross needed no explanation of
the “long stick,” and being presently satisfied that everything
was in proper train, he occupied the time in giving
instructions and information to his subordinate; his sharp
and not over pleasant face well contrasted with the look of
helpless and somewhat hopeless ignorance with which the
other listened, and tried to understand, and didn't make it
out.

With these two had come the appraisers. They were
rough, country-looking men, one in a green baize jacket, the
other in none; pantaloons that were “inexpressible” in
colour at least; and boots that had certainly never before
approached the dais. What could they know of Hebe or
minerals?—but there they sat in our sitting-room, nevertheless.

The clock struck.—It seems to me as if I heard even now
the whirring of that little time-teller, as it briskly counted
out the hour and then gave place to shuffling footsteps and
a call from the knocker. How my heart sprang and sunk
at that conclusion! My father opened the door, and the
empty frame was filled by the figures of Messrs. Self &
Mulhawl.

“Walk in!”—said Mr. Howard in a tone of cool indignation,
and the door was scarcely closed before another
knock ushered in Mr. Jenkinson—but without his green
spectacles this time. The three worthies sat down,—just
opposite to them were “the village posse” with “hats a
row”; and at the far end of the room we yet stood our
ground—like mice in a cage of rattlesnakes, only more
quiet.

Tilting back his chair the shirt-sleeved appraiser surveyed
the scene with much complacency,—that curious satisfaction
which a vulgar mind derives from circumstances and
events where one better educated would find only pain.

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As from the same chymical compound one affinity will
draw an acid, and the other an alkali. His neighbour in
green baize whispered him from time to time, and they
exchanged little nods of sympathy. To look at their faces
and then at the two near me! In these was a strange mixture
of strength and weakness,—the calm resolve that rose
above it all, that could say

“My mind to me a kingdom is;”

The sheriff had ceased his instructions, and now looked a
little uncomfortable—perhaps fearing that his employers
would not approve of the replevin; and Mr. Howard after
a moment's rush of feeling that prompted him to throw the
whole party out of the window, schooled himself and sat
down—between the mice and the rattlesnakes.

“Well! Mr. Cross,” said Mr. Mulhawl with the air of an
injured man, “I suppose now you're going on with this
business.”

Mr. Cross looked at my father and then at him, keeping
his eyelids down however as if he didn't mean to be
detected.

“Well no,” he said; “I guess it'll have to be put off—
there's a replevin brought.”

“A replevin!” the coadjutors looked at each other, and
then began a muttered consultation.

“I s'pose we may as well go ahead with our work,” said
Mr. Boggs in the green jacket; “that's got to be done anyhow.”

“Are the sureties found?” inquired Mr. Mulhawl suddenly.

“Not yet—there'll have to be time giv' for that.”

“Of course!” said Mr. Self, who “did” the benign for the
whole trio. “This is a beautiful place sir.”

“Yes—it's a nice place enough—if it were let alone,” replied
my father concisely.

“I am quite glad to have an opportunity of seeing it,”
pursued Mr. Self,—“I didn't know that anything would
ever bring me this way. Very fine minerals Mr. Howard,—
of your own collecting?”

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I looked at the man—what did he mean by thus commenting
on the things he was trying to rob us of?—nothing
I verily believe but kindness. He felt uncomfortable
and saw we did, and from mere want of skill he pressed
upon the thorn he wished to make us forget. But his look
was very different from that of Mr. Mulhawl; who now sat
savagely leaning back in his chair, surveying the room and
us as one of the aforesaid rattlesnakes might do an escaped
mouse—his face a compound of the sour and hard.

“They'll want some one to go round and show 'em the
things,” said the sheriff with a reference of his elbow to the
appraisers.

Kate laid down her work.

“I will go with them papa—I showed the furniture to
Mr. Cross when the levy was made, and I know just what
is on the list.”

“No daughter,” he said, “I will go myself.”

“You could not do it so easily papa;” and with a
whispered word or two that brought her cheek very near
his, she passed on to the other end of the room; while even
Mr. Mulhawl drew up his foot out of her way and Mr. Self
had nearly risen from his seat; and the posse looked shy
when she turned to them and said,

“I will show you the things now.”

And leading the way with as much composure as if they
had been invited guests, she pointed out the cabinet of
shells to their inspection, and stood waiting their readiness
to go further; but her eye had gone out of the window
then, to the fair blue sky beyond; and her thoughts were
very far from the unscientific debate at her elbow.

“I should like to have a copy of that list,” said my father.
“Here—if you'll lend me yours Mr. Cross, I'll make one
myself.”

“I ha'n't got a copy,” said the sheriff, “without it's this
on the warrant—but I guess you can have that, if you won't
be long.”

My father drew his chair to the table, compressing his
lips as if to keep down the inward disturbance, and began
to write—it was no use. That list, of all our favourite
possessions, of almost all our needful furniture;—and there,
with those people who had so ruthlessly injured him

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watching every movement,—with us there too, surrounded by
such rough intruders—self-command failed for once,—the
trembling hand refused to do its office.

“I can not do it”—he said, throwing down the pen.

That was my grief of the morning. I dared not look at
mamma and Kate, but I stood by him and said,

“I will do it papa.”

“What?” he said, looking up at me with an expression
of face I can never forget.

“I will copy that list.”

“No dear—it doesn't matter—don't trouble yourself.”

“I would rather do it papa.”

And drawing the papers from under his hand, I carried
them to my corner. It was well clear eyesight was not
needed. But the words were familiar—I wrote on in a
dream.

1 Turkey carpet—

2 blue damask easy-chairs—

1 lady's cabinet desk—

1 case of minerals—&c.—&c.—&c.—

At another time it would have moved me;—now I
thought but of the conquered fortitude which I had believed
unconquerable. I could have borne anything else
better. Mamma had left the room, and the loudest sound
there, was the muttering of the appraisers. I could just
hear,

“Hum—about a dollar I reckon—I wouldn't give more
for it—'twon't fetch more. What's in that glass box Mr.
Pelton?”

“Some sort of money to look at, I guess—house is full
of notions,” said Mr. Pelton confidingly, as he made the
acquaintance of William the Conqueror on a silver penny,—
“be worth a sight if they was all liberty caps, but
crowned heads don't go down in America.”

“The box is handsome though—I guess it might be good
for five dollars.”

Writing and weeping and listening all together—my fingers
trembling with their own haste. But the listening
brought some encouragement, for the smaller the appraised
value, the easier it would be to get sureties,—so my father
had said. He sat just where I had left him, his head

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leaning on his hand. A bright thought struck me—perhaps a
brace for the body might reach the mind. I went up to
him.

“Papa,” I said softly, “won't you come into the kitchen
for a minute?”

And selecting the best-looking of the two eggs that yet
remained in the basket, I gave it him in some milk.
He thanked me with another of those touching looks,
and we returned to the other room,—I certainly feeling
refreshed.

A new knock at the door announced Mr. Phibbs, who had
come down to prevent mistakes, and now discussed statutes
and sureties quite as fast as Mr. Cross could follow him.
Very soon the three associates got up and left the house,
thinking perhaps that they could talk more freely in the
open air; and Mr. Phibbs and the sheriff went back and
forth between them and my father, to settle statute limitations
and other unintelligible matters.

Meantime the appraisement proceeded slowly. If money
“to look at” was of uncertain value, how much more the
unrefined ore! and so much time was spent in hand-weighing
lumps of iron and grains of platina, and in smelling
the unsavoury specimens of sulphur, and wondering at the
numberless shapes and colours of unknown minerals, that I
began to think business had merged itself in amusement.
Then came sofa and tables, and then Kate pushing aside a
large easy-chair brought the appraisers face to face with
Hebe.

“The fathers!” ejaculated Mr. Pelton—“who's that?
'tain't Martha Washington is it?”

Mr. Boggs shook his head dubiously and glanced towards
Kate as if inclined to ask in his turn, but she gave no encouragement.

“It don't look much like the Gineral,” he said with a
critical air—“I don't know as that makes any odds.”

“A man and his wife is very often different,” remarked
Mr. Pelton.

“'Tain't set down so in the paper,” said his companion
consulting the inventory—“I guess it's something else,—
she had chink enough to buy shoes with I know.”

“Well what'll it fetch?” said Mr. Pelton.

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“Something short of a fortin I guess,” said Mr. Boggs
facetiously,—“I don' know but I'd give three dollars for't—
may be a little more if I knowed who it was.”

“I wouldn't,” said Mr. Pelton,—“the figur o' nobody
wouldn't be worth that to me—if it warn't Lot's wife; and
I don't say I'd give it for her.”

It was as hard a matter to value the books. Homer
“looked wonderful but they guessed nobody'd buy it,” and
Locke and Virgil “wouldn't pay no how,”—the articles
were fairly beyond their comprehension, and the ignorance
of the appraisers did us better service than they were
aware of. By the time Kate had taken them upstairs to
try their ingenuity upon beds and bureaus, I had finished
my copying, and my father and Mr. Cross took the lists to
compare them. I thought I heard a sound as of some one
in the kitchen, and knowing that Caddie had gone of an
errand, I went to see who it might be. No less a person
than Mr. Jenkinson, who wishing to soothe his surliness
with a cigar had even entered the house uninvited, in search
of the kitchen fire. I supplied him with a match, and shut
and bolted the door after him with much satisfaction.

We thought the day's work would end with the appraisement—
not so. When all were gone but Mr. Phibbs and
the sheriff, these two came again into the house to talk over
the list with my father, and to strike out all the statute
exemptions,—the levy had been very indiscriminate. To
some things we were entitled by name, and then to such
other things as we should choose, up to a certain amount.
How disagreeable it was! What should we keep? for if my
father failed to get sureties, all the rest must go. Kate and
I carried the copy list upstairs to Mrs. Howard, and then
went back and forth with her decisions and suggestions.
It was hard choosing,—hard weighing books against silver,
difficult to tell what combination would outweigh our Hebe;
and yet the three dollars she stood for, would keep our
sitting-room carpet; and the Musée Français must yield to
silver forks. For when we said,

“O mamma! wouldn't you much rather have this?”

Mrs. Howard would reply,

“But how can we do without that?”

The choice was made, the amount deducted from the

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total, and that sum of dollars and cents which was to test
some of our friends stood there in black and white. Large
enough—with only this comfort, that it might have been
larger. And at last, late in the afternoon, our house was
cleared of intruders; and when it had undergone sundry
purifying processes, we sat down to dinner.

For a week my father was away, seeking sureties; and
he came home having succeeded indeed, but by the hardest.
One couldn't and another wouldn't,—rich friend after rich
friend had refused, though Mr. Howard offered them security;
and he had well nigh despaired; when two that were
friends indeed gave their names, and in a way that was not
the least part of the kindness. As Kate said, “It was a
blessed thing all the world were not like some of it.”

The proposed sale had only been adjourned, to see if the
sureties could be obtained; but by some delay or mistake
the issue was not made known to Mr. Mulhawl, and the
sheriff did not hear of it till the day of adjournment. Then
he came over to the Glen to prevent further difficulty.

Mr. Howard was from home, but we were able to give
the sheriff all necessary proof that the business was really
settled, and he left the house remarking that he would stay
about for a while, lest some one should come. This put us
upon the lookout.

Again the wand gave its ten taps, and there—yes, it was
Jenkinson, Self, and Mulhawl who came walking through
the woods from the turnpike.

“I declare they shall not come in!” said Kate, “unless
they've a mind to break the house down!—there's no telling
what they may choose to believe.”

And with most eager haste we ran to turn every key and
draw every bolt; for though we knew the matter was all
arranged, it was impossible to know what such people
might attempt. They chose to believe the truth however,
though they walked and talked for a long time as if it went
hard with them. Once the sheriff came to the house, and
was honoured with a window audience; and at last they all
adjourned sine die,—leaving us with a partiality for shut
doors that did not go off for months.

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