After Betty Jo's aunt had removed the few pieces of furniture she would need in her Retirement Home, she gathered all her nieces and nephews together, and allowed them to go through the house and choose anything they wanted that had belonged to their grandmother.  They took what they could, but it was impossible to make room for everything, so the remainder would go on auction.

That was the day Betty Jo would never forget.  Long before daybreak, she watched as everything left was removed from the house to the backyard where it would be sold to the highest bidder.  This house had been a landmark for as long as people could remember and they came from everywhere.  They began arriving hours before the sun came up, wanting to prowl around and see what would be offered for sale. 

Betty Jo stood back from the crowd, choked with unshed tears as she saw strangers poking and pawing through the things that had once belonged to her great grandmother and her grandmother.

The auctioneer climbed up on the platform and held up the first item to be sold, the bronze and marble fern stand that had stood by the mantle in the living room.  The bidding began, the day Betty Jo had dreaded for so long had commenced. 

The tall china cabinet with lead glass her Aunt was so proud of was the next item to be auctioned.  Betty Jo thought of all the times, from the time she was a little girl until as recent as yesterday, when she had stood in front of it admiring the beautiful collection it held.  She turned away not wanting to see anything else.  She was unaware that her mother and father were sitting on the front row and many times when the auctioneer said, "sold", the highest bidders were her parents.  They felt as she did, these things had to remain with this old house.

The auction went on for hours.  It was five o'clock and the bidding had been steady for eight hours.  Each time she heard the auctioneer say "sold", she felt like a little more of those she loved had slipped away.  She turned away and walked across the lawn to the front porch and sat on the steps. 

Finally, the sale ended and people packed their cars and trucks and drove away.  Betty Jo felt as if the whole world had desecrated this place that had always been so dear to her.  She felt as if strangers had trespassed upon hallowed ground .

When the last ones had left, Betty Jo watched the sun slowly going down, casting a shadow upon her house and it looked as grand and elegant as it had always looked.  It had emerged unruffled and still dignified, surviving yet another storm just as it had weathered all the storms in the years past.

Out of the silence, she heard a rooster crow and she turned and looked.  Four white roosters were walking across the lawn as if they belonged there.  She would never know where they came from or where they went, but for a moment it was like the old days she remembered when all the land for as far as you could see was her great grandfather's, her grandfather's and her father's farm, when the barnyard had been filled with hens and roosters strutting around.

It was like an omen.  This was a new beginning.  Her dream had finally become a reality.  This old house called "Eagle Gables" now belonged to her, and she knew her great grandmother, Amanda, was up there somewhere smiling down upon her. 

Perhaps someday, Amand Burke Brewer's  namesake would be the head of this house, for Betty Jo named her only daughter "Amanda."