Weekly Caledonian. (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1919-1920, 1919-03-19
whats the trouble, Mary:

In voice which was an effort Il
keep from breaking and betrayine
her brave words of a moment before
she said:
"Your father has just sent wore
that l mustn't touch nor carry away
anything from here but my mother.
and my own personal property. HI
says the law doesn't recognize
anybody but Artie IS the heir-step
children don't count"
"It's hard, Mary. I've known il
from the first But don't blame the
governor. He didn't make the law
81 thought hought-maybe
was going to have the place and
It's got to be auctioned," the boy
stated miserably.
Independence Day arrived Five
weeks slipped away and came August
sixteenth, the annual observance of
the Battle of Bennington and a Yer
mont holiday. The leaves and bow
cred country lost the virility of sum-
mer freshness. They were dusty and
faded and gradually streaked with
yellow and brown. Time was going
relentless along into another autumn.
The village housewives began cover
ing their rosebushes and howerbeds
with sheeting and papers at night to
preserve their beauty for a few weeks
longer which was a futile effort at
it's best.
Canny old Truman and the other
two dummy executors decided to wait
until after the crops were in, before
holding the Wheeler auction. The
farmers would then have time and
money to make the sale financial
success.
1t came One day early in Indian
summer.
There is ever an atmosphere of
beautiful tragedy connected with a
country action-with the breaking up
of a home that has existed over many
years. With gambling pulse and
bagatelle, the sanctity of a home is
smashed and the thousand little fur
nishings which give each human hab-
itation an individuality different from
any other are scattered to the winds
of heaven. Here is drama the city
never sees and cannot know.
The day comes for the auction.
Rooms that through the vicissitudcs
of the years have meant the only
Alsatia on earth for tired souls, the
only place for them to retreat when
all other places on earth have dis
appointed or failed them or held no
further interest for them, are entered
rudely and attacked with barbarc
spoilatfon. The outraged household
spills the pathetically shabby con-
tents into the yard before the door,
Strangers or morbidly curious neigh
bors gather around. An auctioneer
who mounts his box with conversa-
ton which he mistakeably imagincs
is funny, and the "sale" begins.
The Sale!
There are chairs which have creak-
ed by green-birch fires in many feath-
cry twilights while a woman's voice
crooned lullabye that soothed deep
in the dark. There are tables with
toy-scarred limbs who have supported
uncertain fumbling baby steps, on
which many a meal has been served
that has meant only heartache in
after years to those who were pri-
vileged for just a little while to
gather amid familiar faces around
that board. There are bedsteads
where helpless little lives walled their
tiny terrors in their newborn nights
and where the pillow for them then
was the softest thing in all this uni
verse-a mothers arm. And on
those same beds, tired souls have
laid them down, and breathed a sigh,
and known the Speace of God which
passes human understanding. There
are pictures which have hung on
homely walls so long, seen so many
gala times, so many hours of anguish
so many hours of numbing sorrow
that they are misty of map and glass
with memory. And there are count
less little worthless trinkets, each
one standing for milestone in some
life, that have remained to see the
giver or the gifted reach the final
Milestone of them all and lie in
dreamless slumber underneath it. !
Cheap and tawdry and worthless
the "things" appear as they are lifted
before the unfeeling thoughtless
crowd Of strangers and disposed of
for pittance. A lot of junk! And
yet pitifully hard-earned money bit
by bit bought that crazy collection
of pots and pans and jars and ket-
ties. The blood of a woman's fing-
ers lies upon those balled up counter
panes and articles of bedding and up
on those doilies and spreads and cur
tains and is woven in those old rag
rugs. 1t was great moment back
in the years, for that home, when
some of these tables and chairs and
parlor sets and stoves and carpets
were purchased. Labors of love, pos
sessions of a lifetime, all that remains
to show for the generation-long
struggle of a man and woman, are
going now,-going !-going!-GONE
and when the auction is over and
strangely piled wagons have depart !
ed and the crowd has dispersed and
the auctioneer been paid off and de-
parted also. when the yard is cleared
excepting for the clutter, MANY is '