being heard outside? Why had my mother cut
off the tickets after she had bought the goods? I could not drive these
thoughts from my mind. After a time a light again filled our caravan. I
looked out this time in spite of myself. I told myself that I ought not
to look, and yet ... I looked. I told myself that it was better that I
should not know, and yet I wanted to see.

My father and mother were alone. While my mother quickly made a bundle
of the goods, my father swept a corner of the stable. Under the dry sand
that he heaped up there was a trap door. He lifted it. By then my mother
had finished tying up the bundles and my father took them and lowered
them through the trap to a cellar below, my mother holding the lantern
to light him. Then he shut the trap door and swept the sand over it
again. Over the sand they both strewed wisps of straw as on the rest of
the stable floor. Then they went out.

At the moment when they softly closed the door it seemed to me that
Mattia moved in his bed and that he lay back on his pillow. Had he seen?
I did not dare ask him. From head to foot I was in a cold perspiration.
I remained in this state all night long. A cock crowed at daybreak; then
only did I drop off to sleep.

The noise of the key being turned in the door of our caravan the next
morning woke me. Thinking that it was my father who had come to tell us
that it was time to get up, I closed my eyes so as not to see him.

"It was your brother," said Mattia; "he has unlocked the door and he's
gone now."

We dressed. Mattia did not ask me if I had slept well, neither did I put
the question to him. Once I caught him looking at me and I turned my
eyes away.

We had to go to the kitchen, but neither my father nor mother were
there. My grandfather was seated before the fire in his big chair as
though he had not moved since the night before, and my eldest sister,
whose name was Annie, was wiping the table. Allen, my eldest brother,
was sweeping the room. I went over to them to wish them good morning,
but they continued with their work without taking any notice of me. I
went towards my grandfather, but he would not let me get near him, and
like the evening before, he spat at my side, which stopped me short.

"Ask them," I said to Mattia, "what time I shall see my mother and
father?"

Mattia did as I told him, and my grandfather, upon hearing one of us
speak English, seemed to feel more amiable.

"What does he say?"

"He sa