So Hal went over. The prospect appeared very fair. Kit had some mechanical genius; but building melodeons would be much more to his taste than building houses.
"It has a suggestion of music in it," laughed Hal.
So the bargain was concluded. About the middle of September, Kit started for Salem and business.
But oh, how lonely the old house was! All the mirth and mischief gone! It seemed to Granny that she would be quite willing to go out washing, and weave carpets, if she could have them all children once more.
There was plenty of room in the Old Shoe now. One bed in the parlor held Dot and Granny. No cradle with a baby face in it, no fair girl with golden curls sewing at the window. Tabby sat unmolested in the chimney-corner. No one turned back her ears, or put walnut-shells over her claws; no one made her dance a jig on her hind-legs, or bundled her in shawls until she was smothered, and had to give a pathetic m-i-a-o-u in self-defence.
Oh, the gay, laughing, tormenting children! Always clothes to mend, cut fingers and stubbed toes to doctor, quarrels to settle, noises to quell, to tumble over one here and another there, to have them cross with the measles and forlorn with the mumps, but coming back to fun again in a day or two,—the dear, troublesome, vanished children!
Many a time Granny cried alone by herself. It was right that they should grow into men and women; but oh, the ache and emptiness it left in her poor old heart! And it seemed as if Tabby missed them; for now and then she would put her paws on the old window-seat, stretching out her full length, and look up and down the street, uttering a mournful cry.
One day Dot brought home a letter from the store directed to Hal.
"Why, it's Charlie!" he said with a great cry of joy and confusion of person. "Dear old Charlie!"