Keeping One's Place 



was the torpid dozing over memories, the mere 

 pottering in the past beside the eager quiet of 

 expectancy? No, it had not seen better days. 

 None better than that which now sunned its 

 shingles and first coat of paint and drew up the 

 fragrance of pink ramblers and syringas planted 

 close about it. Surely it was something to stand 

 there clean and fresh, untouched by past affec- 

 tions, luibattered by experience, with traditions 

 still to make. 



The impression was not superficial for it was 

 confirmed inside. The two main rooms on which 

 the door directly opened, gave forth no hint of 

 mustiness, no empty odor of disuse. From ceil- 

 ings, walls, and floors, came the savor of pine, as 

 keen and resinous as though the trees had just 

 been felled. Their matched boards were inno- 

 cent of aU design, but the arrested sap had left 

 a pattern on their yellow siu"face that shinmaered 

 like a watered silk. Whatever history they held 

 was this frank tracing of their last year's groAvth. 

 Nowhere, moreover, were there the remnants left 

 from old and intimate associations; no books, no 

 ornaments, no pictures to mark the peccadillos of 



[63] 



