Felicia and Kirk, though they would have
liked well enough to own the old white horse and the Jersey heifers,
felt themselves unable to afford live stock, and stayed in the dooryard.
Among the furniture so mercilessly dragged from its familiar
surroundings to stand on the trampled grass, was a little, square,
weathered thing, which Felicia at first failed to recognize as the
inevitable melodeon. It lacked all the plush and gewgaws of the parlor
organ of commerce; such a modest, tiny gray box might easily have passed
for a kitchen chest.
Felicia pushed back the cover, and, pressing a pedal with one foot,
gave forth the chords of her favorite, "How should I your true love
know?" The organ had a rather sweet old tone, unlike the nasal and
somewhat sanctimonious drone of most melodeons, and Felicia, hungry for
the piano that had not been brought to Asquam, almost wished she could
buy it. She remembered Ken's prophecy--"you'll come home with a
melodeon"--and turned away, her cheeks all the pinker when she found the
frankly interested eyes of several bumpkins fixed upon her. But Kirk was
not so ready to leave the instrument.
"Why don't we get that, Phil?" he begged. "We _must_ have it; don't you
think so?"
"It will go for much more than we can afford," said Felicia. "And you
have the Maestro's piano. Listen! They're beginning to sell the things
around here."
"But _you_ haven't the Maestro's piano!" Kirk protested, clinging very
tightly to her hand in the midst of all this strange, pushing crowd.
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