Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III " Fixin' Over " MISS ANGELINE PHINNEY made no less than nine calls that afternoon. Before bedtime it was known, from the last house in " Woodchuck Lane " to the fish shanties at West Bayport, that " young Cy " Whittaker had come back; that he had come back " for good "; that he was staying temporarily at the perfect boarding house; that he was " awful well off "—having made lots of money down in South America; that he intended to " fix over " the Whittaker place, and that it was to be fixed over, not in a modern manner, with plush parlor sets—a la Sylvanus Gaboon—nor with onyx tables and blue and gold chairs like those adorning the Atkins mansion. It was to be, as near as possible, a reproduction of what it had been in the time of the late " Cap'n Cy," young Cy's father. " / think he's out of his head," declared Miss Phinney, in confidence, to each of the nine females whom she favored with her calls. " Not crazy, you understand, but sort of touched in the upper story. I says so to Matildy Tripp, said it right out, too: " ' Matildy,' I says, ' he's got a screw foose up aloft just as sure as you're a born woman!'" ' Matildy,' I says,' he's got a screw loose up aloft just as sure as you're a born woman! ' ' What makes you think so? ' says she. ' Well,' says I, ' do you s'pose anybody that wan't foolish would be for spendin' good money on an old house to make it older? ' I says. Goin' to tear down the piazza, the fust thing! Perfectly good piazza that cost ninetyeight dollars and sixty cents to build; I know, because I see the bill when the Howeses had it done. And he's goin' to set out box hedges, somethin' that ain't been the style in this town sence Congressman Atkins pulled up his. ' What in the world, Cap'n Whit- taker,' says I to him, ' do you want of ...