"What'll we carry to see with?" he eagerly inquired. It was easy to
be eager, because they had no lights except the brands in the
fireplace.
Grandma Padgett, who in her early days had carried live coals from
neighbors' houses miles away, saw how to dispense with lamp or
candle. She took a shovel full of embers--and placed a burning chip
on top. The chip would have gone out by itself, but was kept blazing
by the coals underneath.
"Shall I go ahead?" inquired Robert.
"No, you walk behind. And you might carry a piece of stick," replied
his grandmother, conveying a hint which made his shoulder blades feel
chilly.
They moved toward the cellar entrance in a slow procession, to keep
the chip from flaring out.
"Don't hang to me so!" Grandma Padgett remonstrated with her
daughter. "I sh'll step on you, and down we'll all go and set the
house afire."
Garrets are cheerful, cobwebby places, always full of slits where
long, smoky sun-rays can poke in. An amber warmth cheers the darkness
of garrets; you feel certain there is nothing ugly hiding behind the
remotest and dustiest box. If rats or mice inhabit it, they are
jovial fellows. But how different is a cellar, and especially a
cellar neglected.
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