“L-let’s rummage around,” says Mark.
We stirred things up good, because Mark said you never could tell what you were going to find in an attic, and if there was anything there to throw any light on Rock’s affairs, why, we wanted to know it. There were trunks and boxes of old clothes, and busted chairs, and piles of old magazines and books, and hats, and shoes. You could find ’most anything you didn’t want there, but not much you did want, unless you was figuring on dressing up for a masquerade.
Over in a corner, though, I found a little rocking-chair for a baby, and what was left of a doll’s house and some busted toys.
“Look here,” says I. “I wonder what Mr. Wigglesworth was doin’ with these kid things. Didn’t have any that I ever heard of.”
“No,” says Mark, but his eyes began to shine like everything. “Not that we heard of. Maybe, Binney, there’s n-n-nothin’ to this, but maybe it’s the m-most important thing we’ve run onto in this whole business.”
“How?” says I.
“B-because,” says he, “it makes it l-look as if what I was hopin’ was so might be so.”
“Um!” says I. “How int’restin’.”
Well, we kept on digging into things, and after a while Mark hauled out one of those old-fashioned photograph-albums that fasten with a brass catch in front. It wasn’t a big plush one, like we got to home on the center-table, but a little leather one about six inches long and four wide and two thick. We went over by a window and looked through it. My! but it was comical—the clothes folks used to wear, and the faces they wore when they went to have their pictures taken!
We looked at every picture careful. Along at the front we recognized Mr. Wigglesworth when he was a young man, with Burnside whiskers and funny pants, and his hair all plastered down in front and combed up on the side. After a few pages was another picture of a young woman sitting on a rock with Mr. Wigglesworth standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder.