The big barnlike place, lately cleaned and whitewashed, looked
painfully empty. In one of the stalls the hay purchased for our
recently acquired Jersey cow gave off a pleasant odor. Over in one
corner, in a neat, clean, orderly array, were Schmetz's tools. A
little farther on was our chicken feed, in covered barrels.
We went from empty stall to empty stall, to reassure the women;
there wasn't so much as a cobweb in any of them. All the down-stairs
windows were heavily barred with iron and further protected, like
the doors, with heavy oaken shutters studded with iron nail-heads.
The two small rooms in the rear had once been used as a jail for
recalcitrant slaves; they held now nothing deadlier than Schmetz's
flower pots and seedlings. Every shutter was closed, and the iron
bars looked reassuringly strong; also, the walls are three feet
thick.
"You were dreaming, you silly women! I told you you were dreaming!"
said I, and had turned to go, reassured and relieved, when Alicia's
nose wrinkled. I could hardly keep from sniffing, myself.
In the carriage-house was a faint, indeterminable scent, the ghost
of the ghost of fragrance, so elusive that one sensed rather than
smelled it, so pervasive and haunting that one could not miss it.
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