“We did,” said Betty, “but they piled everything up so good there wasn’t anything left to sit on. I rode with the driver--but his seat wasn’t very high,” she added, less in the interest of truth than with a lingering resentment. “Stitchy Branchett told me,” contributed Margaret Amelia, “once he set on the top step of the step ladder on one of their dray loads.” “I don’t believe it,” I announced flatly. “It’d tip and pitch him off.” “He _said_ he did,” Margaret Amelia held. “Betty heard him. Didn’t he, Betty? Who I don’t believe is Joe Richmond. He says he went to sleep on a mattress on the dray when they moved. He couldn’t of.” “Course he couldn’t of,” we all affirmed. “Delia says they’ve moved six times that she can remember of and she’s rode on every load,” I repeated. We all looked enviously across at Delia’s house. Then, moved by a common impulse, we scrambled back to make the most of our own advantages, such as they were. At last the ground floor of the furniture store was all arranged, and the two show windows set with the choicest pieces to face the street. And when we were ready to open the place to the general public, we sat on the edge of the well curb and surveyed our results. “Now let’s start,” said Margaret Amelia. At that instant--the precision with which these things happen is almost conscious--Mary Gilbraith briefly put her head out the kitchen window. “It’s just edgin’ on ’leven,” she announced. “You children keep your feet off them mattresses.” We stared at one another. This was incredible. Margaret Amelia and Betty had just come. We had hardly tasted what the morning might have held. Our place of business was only at this moment ready for us. We had just meant to begin. There was no appeal. We went down the garden path for Harold. He sat where we had left him, somewhat drowsy in the warm sun, patting an enormous mound of moist earth. Busy with our own wrongs, we picked him up and stood him on his feet without warning him. An indignant roar broke from him. “Just goin’ frost my meat pie!” he wailed. “Wiv chocolate on!” Some stirring of pity for our common plight may have animated us--I do not remember. But he was hurried off. I went with them to the fence, gave them last tag as became an hostess, stood on the gate as it swung shut, experienced the fine jar and bang of its closing, and then hung wistfully across it, looking for the unknown. The elm and maple shadows moved pleasantly on the cream-coloured brick walk whose depths of tone were more uneven than the shadows. An oriole was calling, hanging back downward from a little bough. Somebody’s dog came by, looked up at me, wagged his tail, and hurried on about his business. Looking after him, I saw Mr. Britt coming slowly home with his mail. At our gate he stopped. “Playing something?” he inquired.