He turned the last corner and came in sight of the house. For the first few advancing steps he did not realize what gave it an unfamiliar look. Then, as he approached, he saw that the vines which had hung in bunches about the bay-window were cut away. There were frilled white curtains in the lower windows. He drew near, staring astonished through his glasses, each step revealing some innovation.
They were evidently renovating the whole place. The two thick-set brick posts that supported the gate had been painted. The steps to the porch had been mended with new wood. Then, as he put his hand forward to unlatch the gate, he saw a woman--a broad-backed, red-necked woman in a blue print dress--kneeling on the ground just below the bay-window, evidently gardening. The sight surprised him into immobility, and for a moment he stood motionless, gazing at the back of her head, where her hair was twisted into a tight and uncompromising coil about as big as a silver dollar.
The next moment he pressed the latch, and the gate opened with a click. The woman started and turned round. Evidently greatly surprised at the figure her glance encountered, she straightened herself from her stooping posture, eying him curiously and wiping her earthy hands on her apron.
"Is Miss Reed in?" he said, advancing up the flagged walk.
"Miss Reed?" said the woman "No. She ain't here any more."
"What do you mean?" he asked. "Colonel Reed lives here."
"Not now," said the woman, struggling to her feet. "He did until last week. We bought the place off of him just seven days ago, and moved in Tuesday."
"Do you mean that he has sold it and gone away?"
"That's it. We rushed it through, both of us. He wanted to sell 'bout as much as we wanted to buy, so there wasn't much time wasted on either side."
"Had he thought of selling it for any length of time?"
"I can't rightly say as to that. We've had our eyes on it for the past five years. My husband--he's Robson, the dry-goods dealer, on Third, just below here--was pretty well satisfied that the colonel couldn't hang on to it forever. 'Bout three years ago he offered him three thousand. But the old man wouldn't hear of it. Said he wouldn't even raise a mortgage on it, as it was all he had to leave to his daughter when he died. But we knew he couldn't hold out much longer. He didn't have no work, nor nothing to live on. Miss Reed she made a little, but not enough to run everything, and--"