use, in which I lived, and of its former
tenants.

"Right here in this house is mixed up in it," she said; "I been thinkin'
about it all the way up. Not very many have lived here in the Oldmoxon
house, and the folks that lived here the year I mean come so quiet
nobody knew it until they was here--an' that ain't easy to do in
Friendship. First we knew they was in an' housekeepin'. Their accounts
was in the name of a Mis' Morgan. We see her now an' then on the
street--trim an' elderly an' no airs excep' she wouldn't open up a
conversation an' she wouldn't return her calls. 'Most everybody called
on her inside the two weeks, but the woman was never home an' she never
paid any attention. She didn't seem to have no men folks, an' she
settled her bills with checks, like she didn't have any ready money.
Little by little we all dropped her, which she ought to of expected.
Even when it got around that there was sickness in the house, nobody
went near, we feelin' as if we knew as good as the best what dignity
calls for.

"But Calliope didn't feel the same about it. Calliope hardly ever felt
the same about anything. That is, if it meant feelin' mean. She was a
woman that worked, like me, but yet she was wonderful differ'nt. That
was when we had our shop together in the house where we lived with the
boy--I'll come to him in a minute or two. Besides lace-makin', Calliope
had a piano an' taught in the fittin'-room--that was the same as the
dinin'-room. Six scholars took. Sometimes I think it was her knowin'
music that made her differ'nt.

"We two was sittin' on our porch that night in the first dark. I know a
full moon was up back o' the hollyhocks an' makin' its odd little
shadows up an' down the yard, an' we could smell the savoury bed. 'Every
time I breathe in, somethin' pleasant seems goin' on inside my head,' I
rec'lect Calliope's sayin'. But most o' the time we was still an' set
watchin' the house on the corner where the New People lived. They had a
hard French name an' so we kep' on callin' 'em just the 'New People.' He
was youngish an' she was younger an'--she wasn't goin' out anywheres
that summer. She was settin' on the porch that night waitin' for him to
come home. Before it got dark we'd noticed she had on a pretty white
dress an' a flower or two. It seemed sort o' nice--_that_ bein' so, an'
her waitin' there dressed so pretty. An' we sort o' set there waitin'
for him, too--like you will, you know.

"The boy was in t