d awfulness. I don't know how to tell how awful it was.

In the middle of the biggest peal we'd had yet, up jumped Jill. "Jack!"
said he, "that comet!" I'd never thought of the comet till that minute;
I felt an ugly feeling and cold all over. "It is the comet!" said Jill.
"It is the day of judgment, Jack."

Then it happened. It happened so fast I didn't even have time to get my
head under the clothes. First there was a creak, then a crash, then we
felt a shake as if a giant pushed his shoulder up through the floor and
shoved us. Then we doubled up. And then we began to fall. The floor
opened, and we went through. I heard the bed-post hit as we went by.
Then I felt another crash; then we began to fall again; then we bumped
down hard. After that we stopped falling. I lay still. My heels were
doubled up over my head. I thought my neck would break. But I never
dared to stir, for I thought I was dead. By and by I wondered if Jill
were dead too, so I undoubled my neck a little and found some air. It
seemed just as uncomfortable to breathe without air when you were dead
as when you weren't.

I called out softly, "Jill!" no answer. "Jill!" not a sound. "O--Jill!"
But he did not speak, so then I knew Jill must be dead, at any rate. I
couldn't help wondering why he was so much deader than I that he
couldn't answer a fellow. Pretty soon I heard a rustling noise under my
feet, then a weak, sick kind of a voice, just the kind of a noise I
always supposed ghosts would make if they could talk.

"Jack?"

"Is that you, Jill?"

"I--suppose--so. Is it you, Jack?"

"Yes. Are you dead?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

"I guess I must be if you are. How awfully dark it is."

"Awfully dark! It must have been the comet."

"Yes; did you get much hurt?"

"Not much--I say, Jack?"

"What?"

"It is the judgment day."

Jill broke up, so did I; we lay as still as we could. If it were the
judgment day--"Jill!" said I.

"Oh, dear me!" sobbed Jill.

We were both crying by that time, and I don't feel ashamed to own up,
either.

"If I'd known," said I, "that the day of judgment was coming on the
twelfth of August, I wouldn't have been so mean about that jack-knife of
yours with the notch in it."

"And I wouldn't have eaten your luncheon that day last winter when I got
mad at you," said Jill.

"Nor we wouldn't have cheated mother about smoking, vacations," said I.

"I'd never have played with the Bailey boys out behind the barn," sa