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Page 231
a flashlight, Mike went first into the coal cellar. Abby followed. There was no other illumination in the small, dingy room that still smelled of coal dust. Abby tried to hold her breath as her eyes followed the beam of Mike's light around the room.
There were several boxes on the floor. "I'll carry them out," Mike said. "You go first."
He toted the boxes one at a time up the steps and through the cellar door to the landscaped backyard, where he deposited them beside the steps to the kitchen. Seated on the stairs, Abby pored through the boxes.
The first two contained old papers that were stuck together, ruined, for the coal cellar must have been flooded at some time. She nevertheless went through them as well as she could. Fortunately the journals were not in this damaged clump of pages.
The third box was filled with silver so blackened with age that it appeared covered with carbon. Abby picked out the pieces one at a time. There was a water pitcher, a serving platterand beneath them, a tea service. Everything smelled musty from mildew, and even the cardboard of the box began to disintegrate from being touched. Abby took her finger and rubbed the surface of the teapot. It was the same shape as her mother's andyes! Beneath the layer of tarnish was the familiar embossed pattern: violets and swirling leaves!
Abby hugged the filthy pot, ignoring what she was doing to her shirt. This was a piece of home!

 
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