The snow around him was certainly bloodless and lay white and glistening in the wintry sunshine, glints of which were falling on Mount Washington in the distance and on the hills and tree tops nearer by.
“It’s a beautiful view and must be lovely here in summer,” Alex. thought, as he went up the walk and the ricketty steps on to the piazza, where a board gave way under him and he came near falling.
“Take care, or you will break your neck. I come nigh breakin’ my laig on one of them rotten boards,” Bowles said, putting out a hand to steady the young man.
There was neither lock nor bolt to the door, and they soon stood in the long, wide hall, with a fireplace in a corner, a door at the farther end opening on to another piazza and stairs which led straight to the upper hall, where there was a scampering of little feet as of many animals running over the floor.
“Rats or squirrels,” Bowles said. “The house is full of ’em.”
It was a chilly, grewsome kind of place, and Alex. shivered as he went through room after room,—twelve downstairs and as many more upstairs, besides the attic. They visited that last, and saw where the rats had been and where the squirrels lived, and Alex. sat down near a big chest pushed into a corner and looked about him. Scattered through the garret, which was very large, were piles of old furniture, which would delight relic hunters, and he did not wonder that guests from the hotels had tried to buy them.
“There used to be some pillers here and blankets and things loose,” Bowles said; “but, my land, old mother Chase took ’em. Wonder she didn’t bust open that chist. Guess ’twas too strong for her. That is the one I told you some of the quality wanted to buy.”
Alex. glanced at it now, and saw that it was one of those old-fashioned cedar chests in which housewives of years ago kept their linen and parts of their wardrobe.
“It’s full of things,” Bowles went on; “women’s clothes, all flowered like and silky. He aired ’em when he was here and took as much pains with ’em as if the woman who used to wear ’em was alive,—Mr. Marsh, I mean.”
“Oh, yes,—my uncle. He came here, did he?” Alex. asked, and Bowles replied: