"Me and Ben and Uncle Cal and a Mexican lifted it out of the wagon and
carried it in the house and set it in a corner. It was one of them
upright instruments, and not very heavy or very big.

"And then all of a sudden Uncle Cal flops over and says he's mighty
sick. He's got a high fever, and he complains of his lungs. He gets
into bed, while me and Ben goes out to unhitch and put the horses in
the pasture, and Marilla flies around to get Uncle Cal something hot
to drink. But first she puts both arms on that piano and hugs it with
a soft kind of a smile, like you see kids doing with their Christmas
toys.

"When I came in from the pasture, Marilla was in the room where the
piano was. I could see by the strings and woolsacks on the floor that
she had had it unwrapped. But now she was tying the wagon-sheet over
it again, and there was a kind of solemn, whitish look on her face.

"'Ain't wrapping up the music again, are you, Marilla?' I asks.
'What's the matter with just a couple of tunes for to see how she goes
under the saddle?'

"'Not to-night, Rush,' says she. 'I don't want to play any to-night.
Dad's too sick. Just think, Rush, he paid three hundred dollars for
it--nearly a third of what the wool-clip brought!'

"'Well, it ain't anyways in the neighbourhood of a third of what you
are worth,' I told her. 'And I don't think Uncle Cal is too sick to
hear a little agitation of the piano-keys just to christen the
machine.

"'Not to-night, Rush,' says Marilla, in a way that she had when she
wanted to settle things.

"But it seems that Uncle Cal was plenty sick, after all. He got so
bad that Ben saddled up and rode over to Birdstail for Doc Simpson.
I stayed around to see if I'd be needed for anything.

"When Uncle Cal's pain let up on him a little he called Marilla and
says to her: 'Did you look at your instrument, honey? And do you like
it?'

"'It's lovely, dad,' says she, leaning down by his pillow; 'I never
saw one so pretty. How dear and good it was of you to buy it for me!'

"'I haven't heard you play on it any yet,' says Uncle Cal; 'and I've
been listening. My side don't hurt quite so bad now--won't you play a
piece, Marilla?'

"But no; she puts Uncle Cal off and soothes him down like you've seen
women do with a kid. It seems she's made up her mind not to touch that
piano at present.

"When Doc Simpson comes over he tells us that Uncle Cal has pneumonia
the worst kind; and as the old man was past sixty