“I told Chauncey about it, and he said it was all foolishness. Do all I could he would go up there himself, that same evening. But he come down again after a while, and he was almost as white as Mary. 'Did you see anything?' I says. 'I saw what Mary said she saw,' says he, 'and I heard what she heard.' But no one can make Chauncey own up that he believes it was anything supernatural. 'There is a reason for everything,' he says. 'The miracles and ghosts of one generation are just school-book learning to the next; and more of a miracle than the miracles themselves.'” “Chauncey shows his sense,” Mrs. Bogardus observed. “He was real disturbed, though, I could see; and he told me particular not to make any talk about it. I never have opened the subject to a living soul. But when Mary died, within six months, folks repeated what she had been saying about her 'warning.' The 'death watch' she called it. We can't all of us control our feelings about such things, and she was a lonely widow woman.” “Well, do you believe that ticking is going on up there now?” asked Mrs. Bogardus. Cerissa looked uneasy. “Is the door locked?” “I re'ly couldn't say,” she confessed. “Do you mean to say that all you sensible people in this house have avoided that room for three years? And you don't even know if the door is locked?” “I--I don't use that part for anything, and cleaning is wasted on a place that's never used, and I can't _get_ anybody”-- “I am not criticising your housekeeping. Will you go up there with me now, Cerissa? I want to understand about this.” “What, just now, do you mean? I'm afraid I haven't got the time this morning, Mrs. Bogardus. Dinner's at half-past twelve. It's a quarter to eleven”-- “Very well. You think the door is not locked?” “If it is, the key must be in the door. Oh, don't go, please, Mrs. Bogardus. Wait till Chauncey conies in”-- “I wish you'd send Chauncey up when he does come in. Ask him to bring a screw-driver.” Mrs. Bogardus rose and examined her jacket. It was still damp. She asked for a cape, or some sort of wrap, as her waist was thin, and the rain had chilled the morning air. For the sake of decency, Cerissa escorted her visitor across the hall passage into the loom-room--a loom-room in name only for upwards of three generations. Becky had devoted it to the rough work of the house, and to certain special uses, such as the care of the butchering products, the making of soft soap and root beer. Here the churning was done, by hand, with a wooden dasher, which spread a circle of white drops, later to become grease-spots. The floor of the loom-room was laid in large brick tiles, more or less loose in their sockets, with an occasional earthy depression marking the grave of a missing tile. Becky's method of cleaning was to sluice it out and scrub it with an old broom. The seepage of generations before her time had thus added their constant quota to the old well's sum of iniquity.