He then returned to the lawn and walked
around the house, peeping into the lower rooms--of which there were two
in the main building, the kitchen being an appendage--but saw nobody.
The porch in the rear extended the full width of the house, unlike the
smaller shed in front, which only covered two doors, standing curiously
side by side.
Completely sheltered by the longer porch, Phoebus, looking into a
window, there saw a table already set with a clean cloth, and bread and
cold chicken, and a pitcher of creamy milk, with a piece of ice floating
in it. On either side of a large fireplace at the table-side was a door,
one open, and leading by a small winding stair to the floor above. A bed
was also in the room, which looked out by one window upon the lawn and
the river, and by the other at the farm, the corn-cribs, and the small
barns and pound-yard.
With a sailor's quiet, sliding feet, Jimmy walked into the low hall, and
a cat-bird, in a cage there, immediately started such a shrill series of
cries that his steps were unheard by himself.
"Nobody bein' yer," thought Jimmy, "an' the flies gittin 'at the
victuals, I reckon I'll do as I would be done by."
So he began to eat, and soon he heard a female voice, very close by,
sound down the stairs, as if reciting to another person.
"Aunt Patty says Aunt Betty's first husband, Captain Twiford, was a
sea-captain and a widower, and she was one of the beautiful Hanley
girls, brought up by old Ebenezer Johnson at his house across on Broad
Creek; and there Captain Twiford courted her, and brought her here to
live.
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