He bends over old Susan. She sits like one dead. He takes her withered hand, stoops down and kisses her, and says,— “I’ll let the place to her.” There was a silence in the air that Indian-summer afternoon, and for many minutes the silence was unbroken. A woodpecker tapped a hollow tree at last, and a sea-bird on wide wings went screaming by. “Let the place to me?” says old Susan. “Stranger, you are good, like one sent forth out of the doors of heaven, but I have no money. I must be plain, stranger. I have no money, and how are these old hands to earn any? Look at them. Their work is done.” She bends her gray head. “Stranger, I want to say something to you in private. I have something on my soul, and it troubles me. They have kept back a part of the price.” “What?” “The neighbors, some of them, the Brewster boys, they’ve driven away my Thanksgiving turkeys.” “Why, my good woman?” “So that the auctioneer should not sell them. The neighbors said that my Thanksgiving turkeys should not be sold. Now that was kind in ’em, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t quite right. I’ve always done just the thing that I thought to be right. My motto has been, ‘I will be what I ought to be.’ I’m poor, stranger, but, except the turkeys, my conscience is clear. My folks were all good people, as you know, if you used to work here when a boy, notwithstanding that grandmother used to keep the children away from the herb-room with old Rachel’s gown and calash. Now, stranger, what would you do? The folks here wouldn’t like it if I were to tell the auctioneer; they’re too good to me. But I must tell now; I must be honest, stranger. You are so good to me. I don’t understand it. It is all a wonderment; but the Lord will make it plain. Seems as though I was dreaming.” She looks out over the hills, which are flaming with autumn glows. She starts. “Stranger, there’s one other thing that I want to tell you. There’s another thing that I’ve kept back. But that is honest. My twin brother Martin had a violin, and he left it here. I’ve felt that it isn’t theirs; it’s his. He used to sing in the church over there. You may see the steeple now. And he used to play on the violin.” There was a new movement among the people in the yard. One of the neighbors came up to the steps. “It’s too bad, Susan; they’ve found those turkeys. The dog scented ’em out, and he’s driving ’em home. It is too bad; they might have left ye a Thanksgiving dinner.” There was great gobbling in the hillside pasture. A flock of turkeys, one of which was white, was half running and half flying towards the house, followed by the auctioneer’s dog. One of the gobblers had lost his tail feathers, and he flew up in a zigzag way, and alighted in a maple-tree. Another turkey followed him, flying heavily and clumsily, and crying, almost like a human voice, “Quit! quit!”