The wranglers turned with anxious faces. No one was near the bars, it seemed that naught could have jarred them; but there lay the heavy frame upon the floor, the pegs broken, and the yarn twisted.
"A warning!" cried Sol's mother. "A warning how you-uns spen' the evenin' o' the Lord's Day in yer quar'lin', an' fightin', an' sech. An' ye, John Grow, jes' from the meet'n'-house!"
She did not reproach her brother,—nobody hopes anything from a drunkard.
"A sign o' bad luck," said the grandmother. "It 'minds me o' the time las' winter that the wind blowed the door in, an' straight arter that the cow died."
"Them signs air ez likely ter take hold on folks ez on cattle," said Jacob Smith, half-sobered by the shock.
There was a look of sudden anxiety on the face of Solomon's mother. She crossed the room to the youngster rocking in the cradle.
"Come, Benny," she said, "ye oughter go ter bed. Ye air wastin' yer strength sittin' up this late in the night. An' ye war a-coughin' las' week. Ye must go ter bed."
Benny clung to his unique rocking-chair with a sturdy strength which promised well for his muscle when he should be as old as his great, strong brother Solomon. He had been as quiet, hitherto, as if he were dumb, but now he lifted up his voice in a loud and poignant wail, and after he was put to bed, he resurrected himself from among the bedclothes, ever and anon, with a bitter, though infantile, jargon of protest.
"I'm fairly afeard o' them bars," said Mrs. Grow, looking down upon the prostrate timbers. "It's comical that they fell down that-a-way. I hopes 'tain't no sign o' bad luck. I wouldn't hev nothin' ter happen fur nothin'. An' Benny war a-coughin' las' week."
She had not even the courage to put her fear into words. And she tenderly admonished tow-headed Benny, who was once more getting out of bed, to go to sleep and save his strength, and remember how he was coughing last week.