They had big brass dog-irons that could hold up a saw-log.
There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with a picture of a
town painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in
the middle of it for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swinging
behind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock tick; and sometimes when
one of these peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in
good shape, she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she
got tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her.
Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, made
out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the parrots
was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other; and when you
pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't open their mouths nor look
different nor interested. They squeaked through underneath. There was a
couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out behind those things. On
the table in the middle of the room was a kind of a lovely crockery
basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and grapes piled up in it,
which was much redder and yellower and prettier than real ones is, but
they warn't real because you could see where pieces had got chipped off
and showed the white chalk, or whatever it was, underneath.
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