“It is time,” says somebody, “to close.”
No one seems to take notice that Patty Rutter does not get up and depart with the rest of the visitors, that she only stirs her eyelids and turns her head on the silken “quilt” where she is lying.
The little woman who keeps house in the Hall locks it up and goes away, and there is little Patty Rutter shut in for the night. As the key turns in the old-time lock, the Lady Rutter winks hard and sits up.
“Well, I’ve been patient, anyhow, and Mrs. Samuel Adams herself couldn’t wish me to do more,” she said, with a comforting yawn and a delightful stretch, and then she began to stare in blank bewilderment.
“I should like to know what this all means,” she whispered, “and where I am. I’ve heard enough to-day to turn my head. How very queer folks are, and they talk such jargon now-a-days. Centennial and Corliss Engine; Woman’s Pavilion and Memorial Hall; Main Building and the 154 Trois Freres; Hydraulic Annex, railroads and what-nots.
“I never heard of such things. I don’t think it is proper to speak of them, or the Adamses would have told me. No more intelligent folks in the land than the Adamses, and I guess they know what belongs to good society and polite conversation. I declare I blushed so in my sleep that I was quite ashamed. I’ll get up and look about now. I’m sure this isn’t any one of the houses where we visit, or folks wouldn’t talk so.”
Patty Rutter straightened her bonnet on her head, smoothed down her robe of silken drab, adjusted her kerchief, looked at her watch to learn how long she had been sleeping, and found, to her surprise, that it had run down. Right over her head hung two watches.
“Why, how thoughtful folks are in this house,” she exclaimed in a timid voice, reaching up and taking one of the two time-pieces in her hand. “Why, here’s a name; let me see.”
Reading slowly, she announced that the watch belonged to “Wil-liam Wil-liams—worn when he signed the Declaration of Independence.” “Ah!” she cried, with pathetic tone, “this watch is run down too, at four minutes after five. I remember! This William Williams was one of the fifty-six Fathers. I guess I must be in Lebanon—he lived there and his folks would have his watch of course. Here’s another,” taking down a watch and reading, “Colonel John Trumbull. Run 155 down, too! and at twenty-three minutes after six. He was the son of Brother Jonathan, Governor of one of the Mothers, when the Nation was born. Yes, yes, I must be in Lebanon. Well, it’s a comfort, at least, to know that I’m in company the Adamses would approve of, though how I came here is a mystery.”
She hung the watches in place, stepped out of the glass room, in which she had slept, into a hall, and with a slight exclamation of delicious approval, stopped short before a number of chairs, and clasped her little fingers tightly together.