Bunker Bean | Page 9

was not conspicuously an occupant
of the front room. No day passed that he did not contrive at least one
look at his wonderful shell, but he craftily did not linger there, nor did

he ever utter words about the thing, though these often crowded
perilously to his lips.
A later day brought a letter to Grammer, and Gramper delightedly let it
be known that the doctor at Wellsville had brought little Bean a fine
new baby brother. Bean himself was not delighted at this. He had
suffered the ministrations of that same doctor and he could imagine no
visit of his to result in a situation at all pleasant to any one concerned.
If he had brought a baby it was doubtless not a baby that people would
care to have around the house. He was not cheered when told that he
might now go home.
He meant to stay on, and said so.
But the second day brought another letter that had a curious effect on
Gramper and Grammer. Grammer cried, and Gramper told him with a
strange, grave manner that now he must go. He knew that he was not
told why; something, he overheard them agree, needn't be told "just
yet." This was rather exciting and reconciled him to leaving.
He crept softly down the narrow stairs that night, alleging, when called
to by Grammer, the need of a drink of water. When he returned his
hands trembled about the shell. Swiftly it went to the bottom of his
small box, his extra clothing, all his little belongings, being packed
cleverly about it.
They kissed him many times the next morning, and when he looked
back under the trees to where the old couple stood in front of the little
weather-beaten house he saw that Grammer was crying again. His
conscience hurt him a little; he wondered how they would get along
without the shell. But they couldn't have it, because it was his shell.
The stage turned after a bit, and suddenly there was Gramper at the
roadside, breathless after his run across a corner of the east forty.
Instantly he was in the clutch of a great fear; the loss had been
discovered. He sat frozen, waiting.
But Gramper only flourished the napkin-ring, and humorously taunted
him with not having packed everything, after all. The stage drove on,
but for the next mile his breathing was jerky.
Toward the end of the day-long ride--Gramper couldn't be running after
them that far--he surrendered to his exultation, opened the box and
drew out the shell, fondling it, fascinated anew by its varying sheen,
excited by the freedom with which he now might touch it. Again he

was the sole passenger and he called to the old driver, to whom nothing
at all seemed to have happened because of his filching fruit.
"See my shell I found at Grammer's!"
But the old man was blind to beauty. He turned a careless eye upon the
treasure, turned it off again with a formless grunt that might have been
perfunctory praise, and resumed his half-muttered talk to himself,
marked by little oblique nods of triumph--some endless dispute that he
seemed to hold with an invisible opponent.
The owner of the shell was chilled but not daunted. There would surely
be others less benighted who must acclaim the shell's charm.
Presently he was at the familiar front gate and his father, looking
unusual, somehow, came to lift him down.
"See my shell I found at Grammer's!"
"Your mother is dead."
"See my shell I found at Grammer's!"
"Your mother is dead."
It was the sinister iteration by which he was stricken, rather than the
news itself. The latter only stunned. His hand in his father's, he went up
the walk and into the house. There were women inside, women who
moved with an effect of bustling stillness, the same women who had so
often asked him what his name was. They seemed to know it well
enough now. He was aware that his entrance created no little sensation.
One of them kissed him and told him not to cry, but he had no thought
of crying. He became aware of the thing in his hands.
"See my shell I found at Grammer's!"
The invitation was a general one. They looked in silence and some of
them moved about, and then through a doorway he saw in the next
room an object long and dark and shining set on two chairs.
He had never seen anything like it, but its suggestion was evil. The
women waited. Something seemed to be expected of some one. His
father led him into that room and lifted him up to see. His mother's face
was there under a glass. He could see that she wore her pretty