Calvin nodded. "I expect that's about the size of it," he said gravely. "I'm a brown man. Yes, little un, you surely hit it off that time. And bein' a brown man, it stands to reason that I can't s'pose nothin' risin' out of that hole but a brown house. S'pose it's there now, what? a long brown house, facin' south, see? This is the way it lays. Over this main sullar is the kitchen—big kitchen it is, with lots of winders, and all of 'em sunny, some ways of it; I dono just how they can be, but so they seem. Flowers in 'em, too; sweet—I tell ye; and then the settin'-room openin' out of it."
"What's in the settin'-room?" asked Mittie May. "S'pose we're in it now; tell me!"
"S'pose we are! There's a rag carpet on the floor; see it? hit-or-miss pattern. Mother made it herself; leastways, the mother of the boy I'm comin' to bimeby. I always liked hit-or-miss better than any other pattern. Then there's smaller rugs, and one of 'em has a dog on it, with real glass eyes; golly, but they shine! And a table in the middle with a lamp on it, glass lamp, with a red shade; and a Bible, and Cap'n Cook's voyages, and Longfellow's poems. Mother was a great hand for poetry—that is, the boy's mother, you understand."
"S'pose about the boy!" said Mittie May eagerly.
"Well—s'pose he was a brown boy, same as I am man; brown to match the house. Hair and eyes, jumper and pants, just plain brown; not much of a boy to look at, you understand. S'pose there was jest him and father and mother. There had been a little gal;—s'pose she was like you, little un, slim and light on her feet, singin' round the house—but she was wanted somewheres else, and she went. S'pose the boy thought a sight of his mother, specially after the little gal went. Him and her used to play together for all the world like two kids. S'pose he dug her gardin for her, and sowed her seeds, and then he'd take and watch the plants comin' up, and seems though he couldn't wait for 'em to bloom so's he could git a posy to carry in to mother. Yes, sir! she liked them posies, mother did; she liked 'em, sure enough!"
He was silent a moment. "Go on!" cried the child. "You ain't half s'posing, brown man."
"No more I am!" said Calvin Parks. "Well, little un, I dono as I can play this game real well, after all. S'pose after a spell the boy's mother went away too. Where? Well, she'd go to the best place there was, you know; nat'rally she would."
"That's heaven!" said the child decidedly.
"Jes' so! to be sure!" Calvin assented. "S'pose she went to heaven; to see after the little gal, likely; hey? That'd leave father and the boy alone, wouldn't it? Well now, s'pose father couldn't stand it real well without her. What then, little un? S'pose the more he tried it the less he liked it, till bumby he begun to take things to make him forget, as warn't the best things in the world for him to take. S'pose he did; do you blame him?"
"N—no!" said the child. "Unless you mean stole 'em!"