Connecticut western news., 1889-06-12
The Mysterious Trunk.
BY HELEN FORREST GRAVES.

The first night in the new house how ineffably dreary it wasl
 The day had dawned with blue sky and winds full of treacherous balminess, but long before noon it had clcuded over, and, with the dusk, fine, needle pricking sort of rain had set in, which, without making much outward show, had yet contrived to drench us girls through and through, as we made our way along the streets with the parrots cage, the music box and the best duplex lamp with the jeweled glass shade, the three househ old treasures which for the life of us we dared not trust to the ten der mercies of the truckman, in spite of his manifold VOWS and declarations that he had moved ''the very best families in New York, and some of lem every May. day for tin years"
 The reader must not for moment think that we were rich people because we chan ced to own these three treasures; on the contrary, we were poor enough to be blood relations to Jobs turkey of poverty-stricken memory.
 The parrot we had possessed-poor Chico Lever since we could remember. He was profane parrot and an ill., tempered parrot, and a parrot with voracious appetite; but still he was our Chico, and we never sought to break the bonds of slavery to bis standard.
 The music box had been given us by an oli aunt, who left all the rest of her money to Home for Indigent Widows; and the lamp was all the rent we had been able to collect from a defaulting lodger who had occupied our best room for year and half.
 For we eked out our painfully y-insuf- fcient income, Beulah and l, by letting lodgings, and we did not always have luck in the business.
 To speak paradoxically, tho new house was an old house, and not in the best of repair. The yard gate was off its hinges; one window blind banged dis tractingly against the north side when ever the wind took lurch in that di- rection, and as Beulah endeavored to warm a can of cold tea above our flick ering gas jet, VIC could distinctly hear the rain leaking through on tho floor above our heads with ''drop- drop, like the ticking of a clock.
 As for me, had cut my fingers try ing to open box of sardines, and was dolorously endeavoring to stanch the blood with far from immaculate pock- et-handkerchief, when tle last load came.
 The truckman and his assistant were tired and cross, and little the worse for beer: the old horse was played out; i; the rain drove harder and harder, and the wind blew out the shadcless gas in the halt just as the little old assistant dropped the basket that contained the best crockery with crash. And we were glad enough when at length the last bundle of disorganized stovepipes was flung into the basement hall, and the truckman vanished like an ugly dream into tho mist and darkness.
 It was not until the next day that we discovered the trunk.
 There it stood up against tho wall, just exactly as if it belonged there-a snug, square box, neatly covered with canvas, and bearing innumerable hotel labels, foreign and domestic, pasted on it., while the one in itial nC'' faced us at either end, in black paint.
 "Gracious mel" said Bculah "What's this2"
 "Perhaps it belongs to one of tho lodgers," said I.
 "They don't any of lem begin with e." reasoned Beulah. '1 mean, thei, names don't"
 dts mistake then," said I. "Some one wilt be sending for it directly"
 But day after day overlapped one an other, and no one sent for the trunk.
 "The truckman ought to know," said Beu1ah.
 "We haven't got the truckman :. address," said I.
 "No, to-be-sure, sighed Beulah. 
 'I wonder what is in it, anyway, said I. s'Do you know Beulah9 almost think that ono of that bunch O rusty keys we found in the basement pantry would fit it."