Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/97

spread over the whole of the chamber. It was really quite a test of strength, and the nailing down of the floor was set aside. Now comes a heavy rain. How dull and dark everything seems, and how the rain beats against this cabin, as though it had some especial spite to vent. By way of pastime, we open the great seal-skin trunk, where, in the folds of sheets, pillow-cases, and napkins, are smuggled away bits of choice China,—choice, not only for its intrinsic value, but from long association. I believe we are all startled to find how large a portion of it is crushed in pieces. As it settles down in my lap from the folds of the linen, so utterly ruined, I scatter it through the cracks of the floor, where the mice carry on their domestic arrangements. Now we reckon up that which remains perfect and find we shall have enough for our own use, and quite as much as the shelves will hold. Five of your beautiful cups and four saucers, three of Miss Sallie C ——'s cups, only, and seven saucers, out of a dozen. What would the precise old lady say, could she look down into the mice-territory under this cabin, where glisten the fragments of what adorned