"Funny as a tombstone," said Grandma. Then she went and grabbed the old Seth Thomas clock and hugged it to her. "This seems the livingest thing. It goes where I go."
At last, everything was disposed of, and the padrone's agent's big truck pulled up to their curb. Two feather beds, a trunk, pots, pans, dishes and the Beechams were piled into the space left by some twenty-five other people. The truck roared away, with the neighbors shouting good-by from steps and windows.
Grandma kept her eyes straight ahead so as not to see her house again. Grandpa shifted Jimmie around to make his lame leg more comfortable, just as they passed the cobbler's shop with "TO LET" in the window. Grandpa did not lift his eyes.
"I hope Mrs. Albi will sprinkle them Bronze Beauty chrysanthemums so they won't all die off," Grandma said in a choked voice.
[THE CRANBERRY BOG]
The truck rumbled through clustering cities, green country and white villages. All the children stared in fascination until Jimmie grew too tired and huddled down against Grandma's knees, whining because he ached and the sun was hot and the truck was crowded.
Grandpa kept pointing out new things-holly trees; muskrat houses rising in small stick-stacks from the ponds; farms that made their own rain, with rows and rows of pipes running along six feet in air, to shower water on the vegetables below.
It was late afternoon, and dark because of the clouds, when the truck reached the bogs. These bogs weren't at all what Rose-Ellen and Dick had expected, but only wet-looking fields of low bushes. There was no chance to look at them now, for everyone was hurrying to get settled.
The padrone led them to a one-room shed built of rough boards and helped dump their belongings inside. Grandma stood at the door, hands on hips, and said, "Well, good land of love! If anybody'd told me I'd live in a shack!"
Rose-Ellen danced around her, shrieking joyously, "Peekaneeka, Gramma! Peekaneeka!"