The house was really a cellar deep beneath the tower of the old
Belmont Brewery. My father's big shoulders heaved open the door
from the outside, and from within the big shoulders of the ice-man
leaned and helped. The slow door gave. My brother and I walked
in delighted by our fear, and laid our open palms on the wet yellow
sawdust. Outside the sun blistered the paint on the corrugated roofs
of the shacks by the railroad; but we stood and breathed the rising
steam of that amazing winter, and carried away in our wagon the
immense fifty-pound diamond, while the old man chipped us each
a jagged little chunk and then walked behind us, his hands so calm
they were trembling for us, trembling with exquisite care.