They
were his sisters. His wife had been dead for years.
In the adjoining room sat a group of females, a single candle burning
dimly on a table in their midst. Grandma Bartlett was there, and Grandma
Keeler, and Aunt Sibylla Cradlebow.
Occasionally, a whisper from one of these three pierced the gloom, a
whisper appropriately sepulchral in tone, but more penetrating than any
voice of buoyant life and hope.
I sat in the door with Madeline, Rebecca on the step below, very still
and thoughtful.
The men and the young people, for the most part, were waiting about
outside.
I caught the low murmur of a discussion between Captain Sartell and
Bachelor Lot, who were sitting on the fence, and knew by the attitude of
the listeners gathered around them, that the subject was one of no
ordinary interest. I could not help wondering what those two argued
concerning death and the immortality of the soul.
The tick! tick! tick! of the clock sounded with persistent distinctness
in the room where the women sat, and Grandma Bartlett sighed, and then
came the awful whisper:--
"Ah, death's vary sahd--vary sahd."
Grandma Bartlett, superannuated as she was, was the most trite of the
Wallencampers.
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