The Daughter of the Storage: And Other Things in Prose and Verse — John Shaqi
The Daughter of the Storage: And Other Things in Prose and VerseHowells, William Dean
General
The Daughter of the Storage: And Other Things in Prose and Verse
Howells, William Dean
Poetry; Short stories
It was very well, for one reason, that she decided to go with
Charlotte that afternoon. The New-Yorkers must have completed the
inspection of their trunks, for they had not come back. Their failure
to do so was the more important because the young man had come back
and was actively superintending the unpacking of his room. The
palatial furniture had all been ranged up and down the corridor, and
as fast as a trunk was got out and unlocked he went through it with
the help of the storage-men, listed its contents in a note-book with a
number, and then transferred the number and a synopsis of the record
to a tag and fastened it to the trunk, which he had put back into the
room.
When the Forsyths arrived with the mistaken scrim curtains, he
interrupted himself with apologies for possibly being in their way;
and when Mrs. Forsyth said he was not at all in their way, he got
white-and-gold arm-chairs for her and Charlotte and put them so
conveniently near the old ancestral room that Mrs. Forsyth scarcely
needed to move hand or foot in letting Charlotte restore the wrong
curtains and search the chests for the right ones. His politeness made
way for conversation and for the almost instant exchange of
confidences between himself and Mrs. Forsyth, so that Charlotte was
free to enjoy the silence to which they left her in her labors.
"Before I say a word," Mrs. Forsyth said, after saying some hundreds
in their mutual inculpation and exculpation, "I want to ask something,
and I hope you will excuse it to an old woman's curiosity and not
think it rude."
At the words "old woman's" the young man gave a protesting "Oh!" and
at the word "rude" he said, "Not at all."
"It is simply this: how long have your things been here? I ask because
we've had this room thirteen or fourteen years, and I've never seen
your room opened in that whole time."
The young man laughed joyously. "Because it hasn't been opened in that
whole time. I was a little chap of three or four bothering round here
when my mother put the things in; I believe it was a great frolic for
me, but I'm afraid it wasn't for her. I've been told that my
activities contributed to the confusion of the things and the things
in them that she's been in ever since, and I'm here now to make what
reparation I can by listing them."
"She'll find it a great blessing," Mrs. Forsyth said. "I wish we had
ours listed. I suppose you remember it all very vividly. It must have
been a great occasion for you seeing the things stored at that age."
The young man beamed upon her. "Not so great as now, I'm afraid. The
fact is, I don't remember anything about it. But I've been told that I
embarrassed with my personal riches a little girl who was looking over
her doll's things."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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