clatter and the clock came to a sudden standstill, and now it won’t go. Oh, this must be some sign; it came into my head right away that someone had died. It might be father-in-law; he’s got one foot in the grave, anyhow—or maybe uncle, or perhaps even my second cousin.
First Gossip:
Oh, we had a worse time than that. I quite thought my last hour had come. You know, I’m so frightened of storms. My heart goes bump and I get all out of breath, my breathing’s still so bad from my last illness; nobody’d believe what I go through. I had to hide my head under the bedclothes so as not to hear. And the bedstead kept rocking with me in it
Third Gossip:
Goodness gracious, my dear! and what about me? I’m that nervous, you know, ever since my second confinement, all the doctors gave me up. When that rumbling began, I said to my husband: “What’s that you’re doing?” And he said: “Me? Nothing. I know nothing about it.” I was that afraid, as if I was turned to stone.
Second Gossip:
And me! When the storm began, there was a sort of rattling in my inside, and my stomach felt as if someone run a log of wood into me. My throat went all tight and I couldn’t utter a single word. At that moment my eyes were starting out of my head and I was as white as—as—a sheet. What doings
First Gossip:
There was a rattling and the earth was all of a
