The floorboards, when I advanced a gingerly step inside, seemed safe and strong. I heard not a single creak or squeak as I edged forward. Still treading lightly for fear of a board giving way to my weight, I shuffled along on tiptoes of caution. I remembered how a house father, Mr. Peters, had once journeyed into his attic and put his foot through the ceiling’s floor. He’d almost fallen straight through and down into the next level of the house. His accident had caused him a broken ankle and extensive ceiling repair.
But there seemed no danger of that here, because Officer Krugle was stamping big footedly behind me, and he seemed to have no anxiety of plunging through the rafters. Since he probably weighed twice what I did, I figured the attic base must be sound.
In the center of the large expanse, we found close to twenty wooden boxes, none of them labeled. They were fastened with twine, but Mrs. Smith had used square knots to assure easy access. I opened one of the boxes and found children’s toys: a couple of teddy bears, still in good shape, some push toys with wheels, and a sampling of children’s books, all tied up in oil cloth to preserve them.
“Did Mrs. Smith have children?” I asked, surprised to find such things in her attic.
Officer Kruggel nodded, then gave a rather mournful sigh. “Yes. She had two sons. Both died many years ago. One fell of a horse as a teenager, and another, I think, he was six or seven, died from a medical problem. A bad heart perhaps? Mrs. Smith’s husband passed on even before the boys did. I don’t remember the reason for his death. Probably an illness. We didn’t have a doctor here for a long time.”
He cleared his throat a couple of times before he could go on, making me think that the man might be more empathetic than he pretended with his cold eyes and impassive face.
“Mrs. Smith was the town’s schoolteacher for probably thirty years, so, I guess you could say, she had a lot of children to tend to, even after her own were dead and buried.”
I smiled, liking the emotion I heard in his words. It was a nice thought, but my heart ached for the woman. To have lost her family like that was a cruelness of the Fates. When she retired, she must have been even more isolated in this house all by herself. No one should ever die alone. People should take their last breaths with their loving family surrounding them. At least, that’s what I would prefer when I reached that stage in my life.