find out that even a placid little place like this, set among the
peaceful hills, had its tragedies and comedies--its pitiful little
skeletons behind the doors.

"That's Old '61," Mrs. Camp said, pointing to an old figure in the road.
"See him go marching past!--he always marches, as if he heard drums
beating and he was keeping time. I tell 'em he _does_ hear 'em.
He lives all alone up on the edge o' the woods, and folks say he spends
most all his time trying to pick march tunes out on the organ. A few
years ago he got some back pension money, and up and spent it for a
cabinet organ! Dear land! it seemed a pity, when he might have got him
some nice clothes or something sensible. But there he sets and sets over
that organ, trying to pick out tunes! Well,"--the gentle old voice took
on charity--"well, if that's his way of being happy, I s'pose he's got
as good a right to it as I have to--Amelia," a whimsical little smile
lighting up the old face, but underlying it the tenderness that the girl
on the bed had come to look for whenever any reference was made to
Amelia.

"We've all got our idiosyncreases," added Emmeline Camp, "only some of
'em's creased in a little deeper'n others. I guess mine and Old '61's
are pretty considerable deep!"

The early July days were cloudless and full of hot, stinging noises.
T.O. crawled out to lie in the grass under a great tree, and exult in
room and freedom and rest. Her ankle was still very painful, but she
regarded it with philosophical toleration: "You needn't have climbed a
stone wall, need you? Well, then, what have you to complain of? The best
thing you can do is to keep still." Which was, without doubt, the truth.
"Anyhow, it isn't becoming in you to be so puffed up!"