und the garden, if you want; or maybe you'd ruther go
up in the garret, an' look at Johnny's picture-books an' things. He
likes to stay up there, when it rains so't he can't go out."

"Oh, I should like that, of all things!" cried Linda, delighted. "I do
love a real old-fashioned garret, with all sorts of old things in it!"

"Do you now? Well," said Mrs. Burbank, beaming over the gold-bowed
spectacles, "our garret is full of old truck, an' you can go up there
an' rummage 'round all you've a min' to."

She opened the door of a narrow staircase, with steep and well-worn
stairs, and told Linda that was the way to the back chamber over the
kitchen, and when she got up there she would see the garret stairs;
and she guessed Linda could find the way up alone. She was pretty hefty
herself, and she didn't travel up and down stairs any more than she
could help.

Linda very quickly found her way to the garret, which proved to be
indeed a veritable treasury of "old truck;" and her brown eyes opened
wide with ecstasy as she caught sight of a real, genuine spinning-wheel,
stowed away under the low, sloping roof.

Then she discovered a smaller wheel, with a motto carved around its rim
in quaint lettering, which Linda studied over a long time before she
made it out--"Eat not the Bread of Idleness." She learned afterward that
this was a flax-wheel, on which Deacon Burbank's mother used to spin the
thread to weave her linen sheets.

Beside the flax-wheel stood a superannuated chest of drawers, with dingy
brass handles, which had once, no doubt, been a fine piece of furniture.

Then there were broken-down chairs, with straight, stiff backs; queer,
cracked jugs and bottles, and painted teacups with the handles broken
off; and funny old spelling-books and school-readers, all inscribed,
in beautiful handwriting, on their yellow fly-leaves:

"John Burbank, his book."

Linda knew that the John Burbank who had learned his lessons from these
old books must have been the deacon "when he was a boy," and not her
young friend, Johnny.

There were several old-fashioned wooden chests among the treasures of
this delightful garret, and Linda hesitated to open them at first;
but finally she called to mind that she had been given permission to
"rummage" as much as she pleased.

One chest, painted green, stood near the narrow window, which threw a
checkered square of sunshine upon the garret floor, and as Linda raised
the cover she gave a li