Jump to content

Page:Adobe days (IA adobedaysbeingtr0000bixb p3f3).pdf/47

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Adobe Days
41

before I learned to like French salad dressing, with its reminder of disordered vocal chords?

In the later summer grandmother died, but as we had seen so little of her and were kept away from the evidences and symbols of death, it did not make much impression upon us.

We stayed on in Skowhegan until papa was free to come to Maine for us. In the meantime both mamma and Aunt Martha visited the Centennial and their reports of its sights and wonders made me most anxious to go to Philadelphia, also. When it was proposed that our return trip should be made by way of that city, in order that my father might visit the exposition I was delighted, but when he arrived and said he could not, on account of the state of his business affairs, I received one of the great disappointments of my life. I shall never forget my unavailing efforts to persuade them that they ought not to make me miss that Centennial, since I could not possibly live a hundred years for the next one.

Soon after we left the old home was sold, and grandfather and Aunt Martha moved to California, where the rest of us lived. The man who bought the place cut down the beautiful trees, tore down the house and built two small ones in its stead. But although the original house is gone in fact it will live in my mind as long as I do. I could draw its floor plan; I could set much of its furniture in the correct position.

The arrangement of the dining-room was for years very important for me, because the only way I could