regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did.
Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with
the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It
was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high,
with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like
a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its
rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor.

The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly
shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could
not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings
slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand
erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head
was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient
lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop,
always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt
Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she
swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were
scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears,
or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might
catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted
the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly
rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to
exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the
osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose,
which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin
and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at
sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new
customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb,
still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a