you s'pose, about this place?"

"Oh! this place. Well, now you're talkin'. Only I don't know as I can
play this game as pretty as you do, Mittie May. I don't believe I can
git you up any white marble buildin's, nor gold floors, nor that kind of
thing. 'Tain't my line, you see."

"Why not?" asked the child. "Because you are a brown man can't you?"

Calvin nodded. "I expect that's about the size of it," he said gravely.
"I'm a brown man. Yes, little un, you surely hit it off that time. And
bein' a brown man, it stands to reason that I can't s'pose nothin'
risin' out of that hole but a brown house. S'pose it's there now, what?
a long brown house, facin' south, see? This is the way it lays. Over
this main sullar is the kitchen--big kitchen it is, with lots of
winders, and all of 'em sunny, some ways of it; I dono just how they can
be, but so they seem. Flowers in 'em, too; sweet--I tell ye; and then
the settin'-room openin' out of it."

"What's in the settin'-room?" asked Mittie May. "S'pose we're in it now;
tell me!"

"S'pose we are! There's a rag carpet on the floor; see it? hit-or-miss
pattern. Mother made it herself; leastways, the mother of the boy I'm
comin' to bimeby. I always liked hit-or-miss better than any other
pattern. Then there's smaller rugs, and one of 'em has a dog on it, with
real glass eyes; golly, but they shine! And a table in the middle with a
lamp on it, glass lamp, with a red shade; and a Bible, and Cap'n Cook's
voyages, and Longfellow's poems. Mother was a great hand for
poetry--that is, the boy's mother, you understand."

"S'pose about the boy!" said Mittie May eagerly.

"Well--s'pose he was a brown boy, same as I am man; brown to match the
house. Hair and eyes, jumper and pants, just plain brown; not much of a
boy to look at, you understand. S'pose there was jest him and father and
mother. There had been a little gal;--s'pose she was like you, little
un, slim and light on her feet, singin' round the house--but she was
wanted somewheres else, and she went. S'pose the boy thought a sight of
his mother, specially after the little gal went. Him and her used to
play together for all the world like two kids. S'pose he dug her gardin
for her, and sowed her seeds, and then he'd take and watch the plants
comin' up, and seems though he couldn't wait for 'em to bloom so's he
could git a posy to carry in to mother. Yes, sir! she liked them posies,
mother did; she liked 'em, sure enough!"

He was si