room, shut the doors between, shut all the windows, took the silver out on the lawn, an' then threw a match into the barrel an' run out the coal cellar door. "Amelia is up at her father's an' ain't able to speak of it yet, but Mrs. Brown says her own view of it will always be as it was a explosion. She says as she can't see how you could call it anythin' else in the world. She says they was all sittin' in the arbor an' Amelia was just gettin' into the hammock an' Dr. Brown was just beginnin' on the King o' Spain's honeymoon in the paper, with a picture of a bullfight to illustrate it, when she heard such a noise as she never will forget again in all her life to come. She says her first thought was as Amelia had bu'st the hammock, for she says she tries to be kind to the bosom wife of her chosen son, but Amelia is surely most awful hard on anythin' as you get in an' out of, but then she heard the second noise, an' she says to her dyin' day she won't be able to swear to nothin' but as she thought it was San Francisco quakin' right in our very middle. Why, she says, she never for one second doubted as it was a earthquake. The canary-bird cage come sailin' out o' the dinin'-room window, all the chimneys went down with a crash, an' Amelia give one yell an' fainted. Mrs. Brown says she an' young Dr. Brown did n't really know which way to turn for a minute. They could n't seem to think whether their first duty was to shake Amelia or run around to the front of the house. The windows was blowin' out as fast as they could an' the most awful smellin' smoke you ever smelt was pourin' out after them! She said the smell was bad enough when she was stirrin' the stuff in the barrel, but exploded, it was just beyond all belief. In the end they left Amelia an' run 'round behind the house an' if there was n't all the kitchen stove lids comin' bangin' out at 'em an' all the feathers from the pillows just rainin' down like snow! They run aroun' to the side an' there was Amelia's sheets o' music all over the lawn an' jars o' pickles with the glass lids gone, an' jelly tumblers an' weddin' gold-rimmed china, an' in front an' on top of all else if the fire did n't bu'st out!