who scores.

* * * * *

And so we went.

One day for trunks was all right. Any one can manage trunks. And the
second day, the boxes were emptied and sent flying out to the barn.
Curtains I decided to keep for evening work, while Jonathan read. That
left the closets and the attic, or rather the attics, for there was one
over the main house and one over the "new part,"--still "new," although now
some seventy years old. They were known as the attic and the little attic.
I thought I would do the closets first, and I began with the one in the
parlor. This was built into the chimney, over the fireplace. It was low,
and as long as the mantelpiece itself. It had two long shelves shut away
behind three glass doors through which the treasures within were dimly
visible. When I swung these open it felt like opening a tomb--cold, musty
air hung about my face. I brushed it aside, and considered where to begin.
It was a depressing collection. There were photographs and photographs,
some in frames, the rest of them tied up in packages or lying in piles. A
few had names or messages written on the back, but most gave no clue; and
all of them gazed out at me with that expression of complete
respectability that constitutes so impenetrable a mask for the personality
behind. Most of us wear such masks, but the older photographers seem to
have been singularly successful in concentrating attention on them. Then
there were albums, with more photographs, of people and of "views." There
was a big Bible, some prayer-books, and a few other books elaborately
bound with that heavy fancifulness that we are learning to call Victorian.
One of these was on "The Wonders of the Great West"; another was about
"The Female Saints of America." I took it down and glanced through it, but
concluded that one had to be a female saint, or at least an aspirant, to
appreciate it. Then there were things made out of dried flowers, out of
hair, out of shells, out of pine-cones. There were vases and other
ornamental bits of china and glass, also Victorian, looking as if they
were meant to be continually washed or dusted by the worn, busy fingers of
the female saints. As I came to fuller realization of all these relics, my
resolution flickered out and there fell upon me a strange numbness of
spirit. I seemed under a spell of inaction. Everything behind those glass
doors had been cherished too long to be lightly thrown away, yet was not
ol