He took his medicine satchel and went into the house. Soon's he was out of sight, I climbed out of the buggy and started explorin'. I was curious.
I wandered around back of the house. Such a slapjack place you never see in your life! Windows plugged with papers and old rags, shingles off the roof, chimneys shy of bricks—'twas a miracle it didn't blow down long ago. Whoever the tenants was, they was only temporary, I judged, and willin' to take chances.
From somewheres out in the barn I heard a scratchin' kind of noise, and I headed for there. The big door was open a little ways, and I squeezed through. 'Twas pretty dark, and I couldn't see much for a minute; but soon as my eyes got used to the gloominess, I saw lots of things. That barn was half filled with boxes and crates, some empty and some not. There was a horse in the stall—an old white horse—and standin' in the middle of the floor was a wagon heaped with things, and covered with a piece of tarpaulin. I lifted the tarpaulin. Underneath it was a spinnin' wheel, an old-fashioned table, two chairs, and a basket. There was embroidery and fancywork in the basket.
Then I took a few soundin's among the full boxes and crates standin' round. I didn't do much of this, 'cause the scratchin' noise kept up in a room at the back of the barn, and I wa'n't anxious to disturb the scratcher, whoever he was. But I saw a plenty. There was enough bran-new "antiques" and "genuine" Injun knittin' work in them crates and boxes to stock the "Colonial Exchange" for six weeks, even with better trade than we'd had.
I'd seen all I wanted to in that room, so I tiptoed into the other. A feller was in there, standin' back to me, and hard at work. He was sandpaperin' the polish off a mahogany sewin' table; the kind Mrs. Burke Smythe called a "find," and had in her best front parlor as an example of what our great-granddads used to make, and we wa'n't capable of in these cheap and shoddy days. There was another "find" on the floor side of him, a chair layin' on its side. Pasted on the under side of the seat was a paper label with "Grand Rivers Furniture Manufacturing Company" printed on it. I judged that the hand of Time hadn't got to work on that chair yet, but it would as soon as it had antiqued the table.
I watched the mellowin' influence gettin' in its licks—much as twenty year passed over that table in the three minutes I stood there—and then I spoke.
"Hello, shipmate!" says I. "You're busy, ain't you?"
He jumped as if I'd stuck a sail needle in him, the table tipped over with a bang, and he swung around and faced me. And I'm blessed if he wa'n't that Armenian critter; the one that the clerk had talked to—the "last survivor of the peddlin' crew."
I was expectin' 'most anything to happen, and I was kind of hopin' it would. My fists sort of shut of themselves. But it didn't happen. I knew the feller; but, as luck would have it, he didn't recognize me. He swallered hard a couple of times, and then he says, pretty average ugly:
"Vat d'ye want?"