that fronted the highway, or lane, and then there was a
long backward extension of the Ark, only one story in height. This
belonged peculiarly to Grandma and Grandpa Keeler. It contained the
"parlor" and three "keepin'" rooms opening one into the other, all of
the same size and general bare and gloomy appearance, all possessing the
same sacredly preserved atmosphere, through which we passed with
becoming silence and solemnity into the "end" room, the sunny kitchen
where Grandma and Grandpa kept house by themselves in the summer time,
and there at the door, her very yellow coat reflecting the rays of the
sun, stood Fanny, presenting about as much appearance of life and
animation as a pensive summer squash.

The carriage, I thought, was a fac-simile of the one in which I had been
brought from West Wallen on the night of my arrival. One of the most
striking peculiarities of this sort of vehicle was the width at which
the wheels were set apart. The body seemed comparatively narrow. It was
very long, and covered with white canvas. It had neither windows nor
doors, but just the one guarded opening in front. There were no steps
leading to this, and, indeed, a variety of obstacles before it. And the
way Grandma effected an entrance was to put a chair on a mound of earth,
and a cricket on top of the chair, and thus, having climbed up to
Fanny's reposeful back, she slipped passively down, feet foremost, to
the whiffle-tree; from thence she easily gained the plane of the
carriage floor.

Grandpa and I took a less circuitous, though, perhaps, not less
difficult route.

I sat with Grandpa on the "front" seat--it may be remarked that the
"front" seat was very much front, and the "back" seat very much
back--there was a kind of wooden shelf built outside as a resting-place
for the feet, so that while our heads were under cover, our feet were
out, utterly exposed to the weather, and we must either lay them on the
shelf or let them hang off into space.

Madeline and the children stood at the door to see us off.

"All aboard! ship ballasted! wind fa'r! go ahead thar', Fanny!" shouted
Grandpa, who seemed quite restored in spirits, and held the reins and
wielded the whip with a masterful air.

He spun sea-yarns, too, all the way--marvelous ones, and Grandma's
reproving voice was mellowed by the distance, and so confusedly mingled
with the rumbling of the wheels, that it seemed hardly to reach him at
all. Not that Grandma looked disc