"Better not interfere, Clara," said the doctor, really serious this time. And Miss Clara who knew very well herself that she ought not to interfere, was silenced for a while. All the morning she seethed, watching one van after another trudge away from the house, laden, apparently, with old mattresses, stove-pipes, and table-legs; for, such is the irony of circumstance, that, let a house be ever so richly supplied otherwise, these useful and universal but singularly uncomely articles always occupy the positions of most prominence on a furniture-wagon. Their view fed without appeasing the fire of Miss Clara's curiosity; she exhausted herself in conjecture. And Doctor Vardaman had not been gone half an hour on his afternoon's round of visits when she called me excitedly.
"Get your hat and coat; I'm going up there right away. You can't tell what Jennie Gwynne may be doing. I saw something sticking out of the back of the last wagon, and I won't be positive, of course, but it looked very much like the top of one of the mahogany posts to that big four-post bed in Harriet's room; they are solid mahogany, you know, Mary, carved all the way up with a kind of pineapple-shaped thing on the top. If Jennie Gwynne's gone and given away that bed that was poor Gwynne's own mother's, I just won't stand it, that's all! She won't stop till she's stripped the boys perfectly bare. What's that? Maybe it's being sent to storage? Oh, pshaw, she'd never do that, it's too handsome! For a minute I thought it was the bed in the spare-room, but I remember now that has helmets carved on top of the posts, not pineapples. Is my bonnet straight? You know, of course, Mary, I don't think Jennie would do anything dishonest," she added hastily, her kind old face suddenly perturbed. "I wouldn't for the world have you think I meant that. But she's always run everything and everybody. I don't believe Horace Gwynne dares to say his soul's his own—why, you know that, you've been there. Jennie just can't help it—she's always perfectly sure she's right, and she never will listen to anybody, or consider anybody else's opinion worth anything."
It occurred to me that, in that case, there was not much use of Miss Clara's rushing in with remonstrances, where much more angelically-minded persons than she might well have feared to tread; the Gwynnes were not a family to brook outside interference. But, being brought up in the seen-and-not-heard tradition, I passively followed in the old lady's wake. Miss Vardaman's bark was, I knew, a great deal worse than her bite; and I could hardly fancy her facing down that ready, cock-sure, and energetic little Mrs. Horace Gwynne. In fact, as we neared the house, it was obvious that Miss Clara's courage was going the road of Bob Acres'. She walked slower, commented casually on the beauty of the spring foliage, and paused in an uneasy hesitation when we caught sight of another lady—not Mrs. Horace Gwynne—descending the steps with a bundle in her arms.
"It's Lulu Stevens," she said in an undertone. "I didn't know she was out here. Cormorants! Harriet couldn't bear her."
"Do you suppose I'll ever get home with this thing?" Mrs. Stevens greeted us cheerily. The last time I had seen her had been at the funeral, where she listened as attentively as any of us to the great and awful words in which we are warned that man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them. "I came out on the cars—next time I'll take the carriage. It's the old French china punch-bowl—you know—the one that used to stand on top of the wine-cabinet in the dining-room. Cousin Jennie said she thought I might as well take it, she didn't believe anybody else wanted it. Cousin Jennie's the oldest, you know, and she has so much judgment. Those are those two old cut-glass decanters I just wrapped up and put inside. Goodness, it's as heavy as lead! You ought to see the house, Clara, you just ought to see it! It's cram-full of everything under the sun, I wouldn't have believed there was all the truck in it."
"It won't be there long, I think," said Miss Vardaman, with unnatural dryness, glaring at the punch-bowl.
"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Stevens, quite unconscious of any sarcasm, which was the last thing in the world one would have looked for from Miss Clara Vardaman. "It'll take another week to clean it all out, I believe, though Cousin Jennie is awfully quick and thorough. The old garret is packed to the eaves, the things there haven't been touched for twenty-five years. You know poor Harriet never was much of a housekeeper. Just think, we found eighteen pairs of old shoes stuck away in a closet—eighteen! Some of 'em had rubbers to match. And there was that pair of crutches one of the boys had when he broke his leg, and a whole great pile of daguerreotypes taken in the year One—pretty near everybody in this town—oh, I know it's perfectly awful to laugh, but you can't help it to save you—old Mrs. Duval, you know, Clara, in a lace mantle, and corkscrew curls, and a thing like a tart on a band around her forehead! And some little girl that I think must be Sallie Gwynne in pantalettes with a poke-bonnet—oh, there're ever so many we can't place—there's nobody alive now that remembers 'em. There're two or three trunks of old clothes, and Donald Peters' old uniform and sword, and about a million medicine-bottles, and a set of false teeth—false teeth! Think of it! I'd as soon have expected to find a coffin-plate."
"What are they going to do with things like that?" asked Miss Clara, shamefacedly interested.
"Why, Cousin Jennie sent down to some of those second-hand people on Scioto Street. She says it's a great deal better to sell the things and get a little money for them that can be divided up among the heirs, than to try and give them away and have everybody dissatisfied. Cousin Jennie's so sensible."