As for the old girl, she's so scared she can't talk and so mad she can hardly see. She stands there limp in a tattered skirt with some of her gray store hair that has slipped its moorin's restin' jaunty over one ear and her eyes blazin' hostile. "Oh, Auntie!" begins Vee. "It was all my----" "Not a word, Verona," snaps Auntie. "I know perfectly well who is responsible for this--this outrage." With that she glares at me. Course, we both tells her just how the mistake was made, over and over, but it don't register. "Humph!" says she at last. "If I didn't remember a warning I had at dinner perhaps I might think as you do, Verona. But I trust that nothing else has been--er--arranged for my benefit." "That's generous, anyway," says I, indulgin' in a sarcastic smile. It's an hour before Auntie's nerves are soothed down enough for her to make another stab at enjoyin' a peaceful night. Even then she demands to know what that throbbin' noise is that she hears. "Oh, that?" says I. "Only the cistern pump fillin' up the rain water tank in the attic. That'll quit soon. Automatic shut-off, you know." "Verona," she goes on, ignorin' me, "you are certain it is quite all right, are you?" "Oh, yes," says Vee. "It's one we had put in only last week. Runs by electricity, or some thing. Anyway, the plumber explained to Torchy just how it works. He knows all about it, don't you, Torchy?" "Uh-huh," says I, careless. I did, too. The plumber had sketched out the workin's of the thing elaborate to me, but I didn't see the need of spendin' the rest of the night passin' an examination in the subject. Besides, a few of the details I was a little vague about. "Very well, then," says Auntie. And she consents to make one more stab at retirin'. I couldn't help sighin' relieved when we heard her door shut. "Now if the roosters don't start crowin'," says I, "or a tornado don't hit us, or an earthquake break loose, all will be well. But if any of them things do happen, I'll be blamed." "Nonsense," says Vee. "Auntie is going to have a nice, quiet, restful night and in the morning she will be herself again." "Here's hoping," says I. And if it's good evidence I'd like to submit the fact that within' five minutes after I'd rolled into my humble little white iron cot out on the sleepin' porch I was dead to the world. Could I have done that if I'd had on my mind a fiendish plot against the peace and safety of the only real aunt we have in the fam'ly? I ask you. Seemed like I'd been asleep for hours and hours, and I believe I was dreamin' that I was being serenaded by a drum corps and that the bass drummer was mistakin' me for the drum and thumpin' me on the ribs, when I woke up and found Vee proddin' me from the next cot. "Torchy!" she's sayin'. "Is that rain?" "Eh?" says I. "No, that's the drum corps." "What?" says she. "Don't be silly. It sounds like rain."