Varnished
pine-cones, flint arrow-heads, statuettes set on worsted mats, tiny
strange boxes rarely ornamented--you mustn't even shake them to see if
they contained anything--a small stuffed alligator in the act of
climbing a pole; a frail cup and saucer; a watch-chain fashioned from
Grammer's hair probably long before she fell into evil habits; a pink
china dog that simpered; a dusty black cigar with a gay red-and-gold
belt that had once upon a time been given to Gramper by a gentleman in
Chicago; a silver cup inscribed "Baby"; a ball of clearest glass, bigger
than any marble, with a white camel at its centre looking out
unconcernedly; a gilded horseshoe adorned with a bow of blue ribbon; an
array of treasure, in short, that made one suspect the Beans might have
been something after all if only they had tried.
Then on the lower shelf, when Grammer, relying on his honour, had left
the room, he made his wondrous discovery--a thing more beautiful than
ever he had dreamed of beauty; a thing that caught all the light in the
room and shot it back like a risen sun; a thing that excited, enchained,
satisfied with a satisfaction so deep that somehow it became pain. It
was a shell from the sea, polished to a dazzling brilliance of opal and
jade, amethyst and sapphire, delicately subdued, blending as the tints
in the western sky at sunset, soft, elusive, fluent. To his rapturously
shocked soul, it was a living thing.
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