Athalie

"Her trunks and clothes and all like that was took by the police,"

explained Mrs. Meehan, "but she left some rubbish behind a sliding

panel which they didn't find. I found it and I put it on the top shelf

in the closet--"

She dragged a chair thither, mounted it, and presently came trotting

back to the front room, carrying in both arms a bulky box of green

morocco and a large paper parcel bursting with odds and ends of tinsel

and silk. These she dumped on the centre table, saying: "She had a

cabinet-maker fix up a cupboard in the baseboard, and that's where she

kept gimcracks. The police done me damage enough without my showin'

them her hidin' place and the things she kept there. Here--I'll show

it to you! It's full of keys and electric wires and switches--"

She took Athalie by the arm and drew her over to the west side of the

room.

"You can't see nothing there, can you?" she demanded, pointing at the

high wainscoting of dull wood polished by age.

Athalie confessed she could not.

"Look!"

Mrs. Meehan passed her bony hand along the panels until her work-worn

forefinger rested on a polished knot in the richly grained wood. Then

she pushed; and the entire square of panels swung outward, lowering

like a drawbridge, and presently rested flat on the floor.

"How odd!" exclaimed Athalie, kneeling to see better.

What she saw was a cupboard lined with asbestos, and an elaborate

electric switchboard set with keys from which innumerable insulated

wires radiated, entering tubes that disappeared in every direction.

"What are all these for?" she asked, rising to her feet.

"Dearie, I've got to be honest with you. This here lady was a

meejum."

"A--what?"

"A meejum."

"What is that?"

"Why don't you know, dearie? She threw trances for twenty per. She

seen things. She done stunts with tables and tambourines and

accordions. Why this here place is all wired and fixed up between the

walls and the ceiling and roof and the flooring, too. There is chimes

and bells and harmonicas and mechanical banjos under the flooring and

in the walls and ceiling. There's a whispering phonograph, too, and

something that sighs and sobs. Also a machine that is full of singing

birds that pipe up just as sweet and soft and natural as can be.

"On rainy days you can amuse yourself with them keys; I don't like to

fool with them myself, being nervous with a weak back and my vittles

not setting right and all like that--" Again she ran down from sheer

lack of breath.