The Project Gutenberg eBook, Old Lady Number 31, by Louise Forsslund
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Title: Old Lady Number 31
Author: Louise Forsslund
Release Date: November 15, 2003 [eBook #10087]
Language: English
Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD LADY NUMBER 31***
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OLD LADY NUMBER 31
BY LOUISE FORSSLUND
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF SARAH," "THE SHIP OF DREAMS," ETC.
1909
TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
I. THE TEA-TABLE
II. "GOOD-BY"
III. THE CANDIDATE
IV. ONE OF THEM
V. THE HEAD OF THE CORNER
VI. INDIAN SUMMER
VII. OLD LETTERS AND NEW
VIII. THE ANNIVERSARY
IX. A WINTER BUTTERFLY
X. THE TURN OF THE TIDE
XI. MENTAL TREATMENT
XII. "A PASSEL OF MEDDLERS"
XIII. THE PRODIGAL'S DEPARTURE
XIV. CUTTING THE APRON-STRINGS
XV. THE "HARDENING" PROCESS
XVI. "A REG'LAR HOSS"
XVII. THE DESERTER
XVIII. SAMUEL'S WELCOME
XIX. EXCHANGING THE OLIVE-BRANCH
XX. THE FATTED CALF
XXI. "OUR BELOVED BROTHER"
I
THE TEA-TABLE
Angeline's slender, wiry form and small, glossy gray head bent over the
squat brown tea-pot as she shook out the last bit of leaf from the
canister. The canister was no longer hers, neither the tea-pot, nor even
the battered old pewter spoon with which she tapped the bottom of the
tin to dislodge the last flicker of tea-leaf dust. The three had been
sold at auction that day in response to the auctioneer's inquiry, "What
am I bid for the lot?"
Nothing in the familiar old kitchen was hers, Angeline reflected, except
Abraham, her aged husband, who was taking his last gentle ride in the
old rocking-chair--the old arm-chair with painted roses blooming as
brilliantly across its back as they had bloomed when the chair was first
purchased forty years ago. Those roses had come to be a source of
perpetual wonder to the old wife, an ever present example.
Neither time nor stress could wilt them in a single leaf. When Abe took
the first mortgage on the house in order to invest in an indefinitely
loc
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