Felicia pushed back the cover, and, pressing a pedal with one foot, gave forth the chords of her favorite, “How should I your true love know?” The organ had a rather sweet old tone, unlike the nasal and somewhat sanctimonious drone of most melodeons, and Felicia, hungry for the piano that had not been brought to Asquam, almost wished she could buy it.  She remembered Ken’s prophecy—­“you’ll come home with a melodeon”—­and turned away, her cheeks all the pinker when she found the frankly interested eyes of several bumpkins fixed upon her.  But Kirk was not so ready to leave the instrument.

“Why don’t we get that, Phil?” he begged.  “We must have it; don’t you think so?”

“It will go for much more than we can afford,” said Felicia.  “And you have the Maestro’s piano.  Listen!  They’re beginning to sell the things around here.”

“But you haven’t the Maestro’s piano!” Kirk protested, clinging very tightly to her hand in the midst of all this strange, pushing crowd.

The people were gathering at the sunny side of the house; the auctioneer, at the window, was selling pots and candles and pruning-shears and kitchen chairs.  Felicia felt somehow curiously aloof, and almost like an intruder, in this crowd of people, all of whom had known each other for long years in Asquam.  They shouted pleasantries across intervening heads, and roared as one when somebody called “’Lisha” bought an ancient stovepipe hat for five cents and clapped it on his head, adding at least a foot to his already gaunt and towering height.  She felt, too, an odd sense of pathos at the sight of all these little possessions—­some of them heirlooms—­being pulled from the old homestead and flaunted before the world.  She did not like to see two or three old women fingering the fine quilts and saying they’d be a good bargain, for “Maria Troop made every stitch on ’em herself, and she allus was one to have lastin’ things.”  Poor little Mrs. Troop was there, tightly buttoned up in her “store clothes,” running hither and thither, and protesting to the auctioneer that the “sofy” was worth “twicet as much’s Sim Rathbone give for ’t.”

A fearful crash of crockery within brought her hand to her heart, and a voice from the crowd commented jocularly, “Huh!  Breakin’ up housekeepin’!” Even Mrs. Troop smiled wryly, and the crowd guffawed.

“Now here,” bellowed the auctioneer, “is a very fine article sech as you don’t often see in these days.  A melodeon, everybody, a parlor organ, in size, shape, and appearance very unusual, so to say.”

“Ain’t it homely!” a female voice remarked during the stout auctioneer’s pause for breath.

“Not being a musician, ladies and gents, I ain’t qualified to let you hear the tones of this instrument, but—­I am sure it will be an ornament to any home and a source of enjoyment to both old and young.  Now—­what’ll you give me for this fine old organ?”