e old brick
school-house. Mrs. Haight was sitting on the curb-stone in her
night-gown, wailing like a banshee, but although all the rest of the
town appeared to be in the streets, and similarly attired, they were
quiet enough. As I passed the cemetery I gave it a hasty side glance,
half-afraid of what I might see. All the monuments are down and pointing
in every direction. What gyrations! Do you suppose they've had it in San
Francisco?"

"Do I suppose--much you know about our earthquakes! San Francisco always
gets the worst of it, or seems to, there is so much more to shake. Your
mother is probably in hysterics, although up on the hills one is safe
enough. It is the sandy valley and the made ground down by the
ferries--up to Montgomery Street, in fact--that get the worst of it. I
have ordered the launch."

"Good. I wish my mother had gone east from El Paso, as she had half a
mind to do. But she wanted to see her doctor again. I am afraid she
won't look at this as we do. I never was so interested in my life. Was
sure we were going to smash, but that it was worth while in anything so
stupendous. I suppose it is too early to telephone."

Isabel pointed to the wires. They were sagging, and two of the telegraph
poles were down. "Doubtless the tracks are twisted, too. We are
fortunate to have the launch."

X

Mac, so swollen with the prideful experience which enabled him to
compare two great earthquakes, and his accumulations of practical data
bearing thereon, appeared ten years younger, and, as Gwynne and Isabel
rode up, was lording it over his fellow-hirelings. He had forbidden
Chuma to make a fire in the kitchen stove until the chimney, what was
left of it, had been repaired, directed him to bring down-stairs the
oil-stove Isabel had bought for the old rheumatic's comfort, and cook
breakfast upon it. As even the stovepipe in the out-building, used for
preparing the elaborate repasts of the Leghorn, was twisted, Abe had
been ordered to drag the great stove into the open, build a screen about
it, and "do the best he could, and be thankful he was alive." Poor Abe,
who had not been extant in 1868, and had even missed the considerable
earthquakes of the Nineties, was in a somewhat demoralized state, and
wondering audibly what people supposed he cared about chickens, anyhow.

Isabel and Gwynne sat down in the dining-room and ate their
breakfast--on fragments--calmly and methodically, talking constantly of
the ear