When Mrs. Markham found that they were really going, that nothing she
could say would be of any avail, she gave up the contest, and,
mother-like, set herself at work planning for their comfort, or rather
for Richard's comfort. It was for him that the best and newest
featherbed, weighing thirty pounds and a half to a feather, was aired
and sunned three days upon the kitchen roof, the good woman little
dreaming that if the thirty-pounder was used at all, it would do duty
under the hair mattress Ethelyn meant to have. They were to furnish
their own rooms, and whatever expense Mrs. Markham could save her boy
she meant to do. There was the carpet in their chamber--they could have
that; for after they were gone it was not likely the room would be used,
and the old rag one would answer. They could have the curtains, too, if
they liked, with the table and the chairs. Left to himself and his
mother's guidance, Richard would undoubtedly have taken to Camden such a
promiscuous outfit as would have made even a truckman smile; but there
were three women leagued against him, and so draft after draft was drawn
from his funds in the Camden bank until the rooms were furnished; and
one bright morning in early June, a week after Aunt Barbara started for
Chicopee, Ethie bid her husband's family good-by, and turning her back
upon Olney, turned also the first leaf of her life's history in
the West.
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