"There's only Ben. I am a fixture; and it will be years before Jim reaches that tempting period. Oh, I think you need not worry!" comforted the Doctor.
Hanny was glad to go with everybody else. They had one sad sweet time at the Deans, talking over old days and the tea in the back-yard, when there had been Nora and the pussy, and the one who was not. It was rather sad to outgrow childhood. Ah, how merry they had been! What a simple idyllic memory this was to be for all her later years! Mrs. Reed always lived in First Street to her; and Tudie Dean used to go up and down the street, a blessed, beautiful ghost. The little girl was quite sure she would not be afraid to clasp her white hand, if she should meet her wandering about those sacred precincts. She could not have put her idea into Longfellow's beautiful lines; but it haunted her in the same shape of remembrance.
"All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses."
They went down to the Jasper house also. There had been a family of children to tramp over the flower-beds and leave debris about. There was no pretty striped awning, no wheeling-chair, no slim, picturesque negro lad, and no ladies in light lawns sitting about. It looked common-place.
"We can write Ichabod on it," said Charles, half regretfully.
Hanny asked Joe why they should; and he showed her the verse, "Thy glory has departed."
"The glory has departed from the whole street," she said, glancing around. The new-comers were of a different class. No one swept the debris up to the crown of the street any more; and the city street-sweepers were infrequent visitors.
"It will be beginning all over again," Dr. Hoffman said to his brother-in-law. "It seems a pity to waste so much endeavour. Yet if you can wait, the practice will be better worth while."
"It wouldn't be the fair thing to crowd in on young Dr. Fitch. He did suggest a partnership, but I thought I would rather strike out for myself. And I prefer having all my interests at home. Mother begins to miss the children that have gone out; and there were so many of us."
When Mrs. Underhill looked back, she always thought those early years in First Street were among the happiest of her life. They were broader and richer than the first wedded years. They could not keep together always. She wanted her children to know the sweetness of life and love. Steve and Margaret were very happy. John and his wife had supped of sorrow; but they were young and had each other; and children would come to restore beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning.