solately about the Ark, calling, "Ma! ma!" Could hear the outside door
swung open, and imagine Grandpa's wild face peering into the darkness,
while still he called; "Ma! ma! where be ye? It's half after ten!"

Then, from the foot of the stairs would arise his distressed, appealing
cry; "Come, ma, where be ye? It's half after ten!" Silence everywhere.
With a mighty groan, Grandpa would come shuffling up the steep stairs,
and what was most remarkable, Grandma was invariably found secluded amid
the rubbish in the old garret. Then the whisperings that arose between
those two would have pierced through denser substances by far than the
little red door which separated me from the scene.

"How'd I know, ma, but what you'd gone out and broke yer leg, or
somethin'? Come, ma--" with exasperated persuasiveness--"what do ye want
to pester me this way for?"

"Why, pa," arose the calm, mellifluous accents of Grandma Keeler, "so't
you might know how you'd feel if I should be took away!"

Next, the little staircase would resound with loud creaks and groans, as
this reunited couple cautiously--and I have no doubt that they believed
the whole affair had been conducted with the utmost secrecy--made their
way down in their stocking feet.

Grandma--Heaven bless her, always devoted, though original--never saw a
human ill that she did not long to alleviate. So, as Grandpa and I daily
refused our food, she affirmed, as her opinion, that the one need of our
deranged systems was a clarifier! And she forthwith prepared a mixture of
onions and molasses, with various bitter roots, which latter she, upon
her knees, had wrested from the frosty bosom of the earth in an arena
immediately adjoining the Ark. Thus I beheld her one wintry day, and
wondered greatly what she was at. When I came home from school at night,
through a strangely permeated atmosphere, I beheld the clarifier
simmering on the stove.

Grandpa already stood shivering over the fire. He smiled when I came in,
but it was a faint and deathly smile--the smile of one who has returned,
per force, to weak, defenceless infancy.

Grandma pressed me kindly to partake. I preferred to keep what ills I
had, rather than fly to others that I knew not of. So I gently and firmly
declined. But for several days in succession, Grandpa was made the victim
of this ghastly remedy.

His sufferings went beyond the power of mad expostulation to express, and
came nigh to produce upon his features the asp