s and
Amelia Powers had run over, and were sitting there with Louisa and
me. Little Alice had gone to bed; we had refused to allow her to go
to see what was going on, and yet listened to Tommy Gregg's report,
which was not, I suppose, to our credit. I have often thought that
punctilious people will use cats'-paws to gratify curiosity when they
would scorn to use them for anything else. Still, neither Louisa nor
I would have actually beckoned Tommy Gregg up to the door, as Mrs.
Jones did, though I suppose we had as much cause to be ashamed, for
we certainly listened full as greedily as she.

It seemed to me that Tommy had seen all the furniture unpacked, and
much of it set up, by lurking around in the silent, shrinking,
bright-eyed fashion that he has. Tommy Gregg is so single-minded in
his investigations that I can easily imagine that he might seem as
impersonal as an observant ray of sunlight in the window. Anyway, he
had evidently seen everything, and nobody had tried to stop him.

"It ain't very handsome," said Tommy Gregg with a kind of
disappointment and wonder. "There ain't no carpets in the house
except in Grandma Cobb's room, and that's jest straw mattin'; and
there's some plain mats without no roses on 'em; and there ain't no
stove 'cept in the kitchen; just old andirons like mother keeps up
garret; and there ain't no stuffed furniture at all; and they was
eatin' supper without no table-cloth."

Amelia Powers and Mrs. Jones thought that it was very singular that
the Jamesons had no stuffed furniture, but Louisa and I did not feel
so. We had often wished that we could afford to change the haircloth
furniture, which I had had when I was married, for some pretty rattan
or plain wood chairs. Louisa and I rather fancied the Jamesons' style
of house-furnishing when we call there. It was rather odd, certainly,
from our village standpoint, and we were not accustomed to see bare
floors if people could possibly buy a carpet; the floors were pretty
rough in the old house, too. It did look as if some of the furniture
was sliding down-hill, and it was quite a steep descent from the
windows to the chimney in all the rooms. Of course, a carpet would
have taken off something of that effect. Another thing struck us as
odd, and really scandalized the village at large: the Jamesons had
taken down every closet and cupboard door in the house. They had hung
curtains before the clothes-closets, but the shelves of the pantry
which