It had been a
very happy summer; full of color and life. The brush had worked easily,
the weather had lent a helping hand; all had been peace and quiet.
Ofttimes, when I was happiest, somehow Muffles's solitary figure rose
before me, the tears coursing down his cheeks, and with it that cold
silence--a silence which only a dead body brings to a house and which
ends only with its burial.
The week after I landed--it was in November, a day when the crows flew
in long wavy lines and the heavy white and gray clouds pressed close
upon the blue vista of the hills--I turned and crossed through the wood,
my feet sinking into the soft carpet of its dead leaves. Soon I caught a
glimpse of the chimneys of Shady Side thrust above the evergreens; a
curl of smoke was floating upward, filling the air with a filmy haze. At
this sign of life within, my heart gave a bound.
Muffles was still there!
When I swung back the gate and mounted the porch a feeling of
uncertainty came over me. The knocker was gone, and so was the sign.
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