In due time the carpet had been made, Melinda Jones sewing up three of
the seams, while Andy, who knew how to use the needle almost as well as
a girl, claimed the privilege of sewing at least half a seam on the new
sister's carpet. Adjoining Richard's chamber was a little room where
Mrs. Markham's flour and meal and corn were kept, but which, with a
little fitting up, would answer nicely for a bedroom, and after an
amount of engineering, which would have done credit to the general of an
army, Melinda succeeded in coaxing Mrs. Markham to move her barrels and
bags, and give up the room for Ethelyn's bed, which looked very nice and
inviting, notwithstanding that the pillows were small, and the bedstead
a high poster, which had been in use for twenty years. Mrs. Markham knew
all about the boxes, as she called them. There was one in Mrs. Jones'
front chamber, but she had never bought one, for what then would she do
with her old ones--"with them laced cords," so greatly preferable to the
hard slats, which nearly broke her back the night she slept on some at a
friend's house in Olney.
Richard was fond of books, and had collected from time to time a
well-selected library, which was the only ornament in his room when
Melinda first took it in hand; but when she had finished her work--when
the carpet was down, and the neat, white shades were up at the windows;
when the books which used to be on the floor and table, and chairs, and
mantel, and window sills, and anywhere, were neatly arranged in the very
respectable shelves which Andy made and James had painted; when the
little sewing chair designed for Ethelyn was put before one window, and
Richard's arm-chair before the other, and the drab lounge was drawn a
little into the room, and the bureau stood corner-ways, with a bottle of
cologne upon it, which John had bought, and a pot of pomade Andy had
made, and two little pink and white mats Melinda had crocheted, the room
was very presentable. Great, womanish Andy was sure Ethelyn would be
pleased, and rubbed his hands jubilantly over the result of his labors,
while Melinda was certainly pardonable for feeling that in return for
what she had done for Richard's wife she might venture to suggest that
the huge box, marked piano, which for ten days had been standing on the
front piazza, be opened and the piano set up, so that she could try its
tone. This box had cost Andy a world of trouble, keeping him awake
nights, and taking him from his bed more than once, as he fancied he
heard a mysterious sound, and feared someone might be stealing the
ponderous thing, which it took four men to lift. With the utmost
alacrity he helped in the unpacking, nearly bursting a blood-vessel as
he tugged at the heaviest end, and then running to the village with all
his speed, to borrow Mrs. Crandall's piano key, which, fortunately,
fitted Ethelyn's, so that Melinda Jones was soon seated in state, and
running her fingers over the superb five-hundred dollar instrument,
Ethelyn's gift from Aunt Barbara on her nineteenth birthday.