My sister caught Harry in her
arms, and then Jack and Willie came breathlessly in. "Did you
feel it?" said Jack.
"Did we feel it!" said I, scornfully.
Sarah was silent, and I looked so reproachfully at Jack, that he
dropped his light tone, and said: "It was pretty awful. We were
in the Goldwaters' store, when suddenly it grew dark and the
lamps above our heads began to rattle and swing, and we all
rushed out into the middle of the street and stood, rather
dazed, for we scarcely knew what had happened; then we hurried
home. But it's all over now."
"I do not believe it," said I; "we shall have more"; and, in
fact, we did have two light shocks in the night, but no more
followed, and the next morning, we recovered, in a measure, from
our fright and went out to see the great fissures in that
treacherous crust of earth upon which Ehrenberg was built.
I grew afraid, after that, and the idea that the earth would
eventually open and engulf us all took possession of my mind.
My health, already weakened by shocks and severe strains, gave
way entirely. I, who had gloried in the most perfect health, and
had a constitution of iron, became an emaciated invalid.
>From my window, one evening at sundown, I saw a weird procession
moving slowly along towards the outskirts of the village. It must
be a funeral, thought I, and it flashed across my mind that I had
never seen the burying-ground.
A man with a rude cross led the procession. Then came some
Mexicans with violins and guitars. After the musicians, came the
body of the deceased, wrapped in a white cloth, borne on a bier
by friends, and followed by the little band of weeping women,
with black ribosos folded about their heads. They did not use
coffins at Ehrenberg, because they had none, I suppose.
The next day I asked Jack to walk to the grave-yard with me. He
postponed it from day to day, but I insisted upon going. At last,
he took me to see it.
There was no enclosure, but the bare, sloping, sandy place was
sprinkled with graves, marked by heaps of stones, and in some
instances by rude crosses of wood, some of which had been
wrenched from their upright position by the fierce sand-storms.
There was not a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower. I walked
about among these graves, and close beside some of them I saw
deep holes and whitnened bones. I was quite ignorant or
unthinking, and asked what the holes were.
"It is where the coyotes and wolves come in the nights," said
Jack.
My heart sickened as I thought of these horrors, and I wondered
if Ehrenberg held anything in store for me worse than what I had
already seen.
