"And then Blooker kem up--"

To the very last, even when his eyes were too dim to read and his voice
was cracked, he would start up, like some old machine set a-whirring
when you touched the rusty lever, and talk about the Battle of Waterloo.

No one, so far as I know, ever heard him complain, or bemoan his age, or
regret the change in the times; and when his day came, he lay down upon
his bed and died.

"Positively nothing will be reserved," were the familiar words of the
poster, and they have a larger meaning in an old country neighbourhood
than the mere sale of the last pan and jug and pig and highboy. Though
we live with our neighbours for fifty years we still secretly wonder
about them. We still suspect that something remains covered, something
kept in and hidden away, some bits of beauty unappreciated--as they are,
indeed, with ourselves. But death snatches away the last friendly
garment of concealment; and after the funeral the auction. We may enter
now. The doors stand at last flung widely open; all the attics have been
ransacked; all the chests have been turned out; a thousand privacies
stand glaringly revealed in the sunny open spaces of the yard.
Positively nothing will be reserved; everything will be knocked down to
the highest bidder. What wonder that the neighbourhood gathers, what
wonder that it nods its head, leaves sentences half uttered, smiles
enigmatically.

Nearly all the contents of the house had been removed to the yard, under
the great chesnut tree. A crowd of people, mostly women, were moving
about among the old furniture, the old furniture that had been in John