She has a fire in the settin'-room 'most
every night, though we ain't had a frost yet; and as near's I can
make out, she's got full red curtains hangin' up to her windows.
I ain't sure, for she don't open the blinds in that room till I
get away in the morning, and she shuts 'em before I get back at night.
Si don't know red from green, so he's useless in such matters.
I'm going home late to-night, and walk down on that side o' the river,
so't I can call in after dark and see what makes her house light up
as if the sun was settin' inside of it."
As a matter of fact, Lyddy was reveling in house-furnishing
of a humble sort. She had a passion for color. There was
a red-and-white straw matting on the sitting-room floor.
Reckless in the certain possession of twenty dollars a month,
she purchased yards upon yards of turkey red cotton;
enough to cover a mattress for the high-backed settle, for long
curtains at the windows, and for cushions to the rockers.
She knotted white fringes for the table covers and curtains,
painted the inside of the fireplace red, put some pots,
of scarlet geraniums on the window-sills, filled newspaper
rack with ferns and tacked it over an ugly spot in the wall,
edged her work-basket with a tufted trimming of scarlet worsted,
and made an elaborate photograph case of white crash and red
cotton that stretched the entire length of the old-fashioned
mantelshelf, and held pictures of Mr.
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