pocket that
had the money in it.

After a while Frank began to feel very drowsy, and he thought he would lie
down again, but he promised himself he would not sleep, and he did not
undress; for if he took his pantaloons off, he did not know how he could
make sure every minute that the money was safe, unless he put it under his
pillow. He was afraid if he did that he might forget it in the morning,
and leave it when he got up.

He stretched himself on the bed beside his brother, and it seemed to him
that it was hardly a second before he heard a loud crash that shook the
whole house; and the room looked full of fire. Another crash came, and
then another, with a loud, stony kind of rolling noise that seemed to go
round the world. Then he knew that he had been asleep, and that this
dreadful noise was the swift coming of a thunder-storm.

It was the worst storm that was ever known in Mill Creek Valley, so the
people said afterwards, but as yet it was only beginning. The thunder was
deafening, and it never stopped a moment. The lightning hardly stopped,
either; it filled the room with a quivering blaze; at times, when it died
down, the night turned black as ink, and then a flash came that lit up the
fields outside, and showed every stick and stone as bright as the
brightest day.

Frank was dazed at first by the glare and the noise; then he jumped out of
bed, and tried for two things: whether the money was still safe in his
pocket, and whether his brother was alive. He never could tell which he
found out first; as soon as he knew, he felt a little bit better, but
still his cheerfulness was not anything to brag of.

If his brother was alive, it seemed to be more than any one else in the
house was besides himself. He could not hear a soul stirring, although in
that uproar there might have been a full-dress parade of the Butler Guards
in the tavern, firing off their guns, and he could not have heard them. He
looked out in the entry, but it was all dark there except when he let the
flashes of his room into it. He thought he would light his candle, for
company, and so that the lightning would not be so awfully bright. He
found his candlestick easily enough--he could have found a pin in that
glare--but there were no matches.

So he decided to get along without the candle. Every now and then he put
his hand in his pocket, or on the bulge outside, to make sure of the
money; and whenever a very bright flash came, he would listen f