Suddenly the door banged open and Father stumbled out with his clothes all in a bundle. "It's an earthquake, I think, " he and I shouted. He had washed his hair the night before and had not had time to twist it into a queue, so it hung down his black long and black.
He looked around in the back yard. It was such a wide, open space that we were fairly safe there. Certainly more safe than in the frame doorway of our stable. He got into his pants and shirt and then his socks and boots.
"Do you think one of the mean dragons is doing all this?" I asked him.
"Maybe. Maybe not." Father had sat down to stuff his feet into his boots. "Time to wonder about that later. Now you wait here."
"No, I want to tell to the neighbors and Miss Whitlaw that the earthquake will happen soon."
"Son, It is very danger now. Earthquake will happen at any moment." Father shouted at me.
I wanted to retort him. When I tried to shout, the city bells was ringing. They were rung by no human hand---the earthquake had just shaken them in their steeples.The second tremor was worse than the first. From all over came an immense wall of noise: of metal tearing, of bricks crashing, of wooding breaking free from wood nails, and all. Everywhere, what man had built came undone. I was looking at a tenement house to our right and it just seemed to shudder and then collapse. One moment there were solid wooden walls and the next moment it had fallen with the cracking of wood and the tinkling of glass and the screams of people inside and I was the people who screamed too.
"Now you can see how danger it is. Stay here and calm down yourself" Father said and gave me a pat.
"I am sorry." I said it in a soft voice.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
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