Catty nudged me. “Groan,” says he.
I drew in a breath and commenced on the first end of a groan. It started slow and low and kind of trembly, and then lifted up a little and got louder, and sank back and turned itself over once or twice, and then finished up with a rush. It was a fine groan. Of all the groans I ever heard, and I’ve heard some first class ones in my time, that was the best. It was a groan with trimmings. Not many fellows could turn out a groan like that, and I couldn’t have, but for luck. Once Dad had the siatiac rheumatiz, and I used to set around and study how he groaned. He did as good as you could expect without practice; but I’d studied the thing, and listened to the different kinds, and, if I do say it, I was an expert groaner. And the pain in my nose helped.
When I let up there wasn’t a sound. Both those men were as quiet as a doorknob. They just stood and listened.
“W-what was t-that?” says one of them after a minute.
“Wind,” says the other.
“It w-was a g-groan,” says the first one.
Catty nudged me. “Give ’em another,” says he, and I did. It was a better one than the first, with more fancy fixin’s to it.
“Guess they won’t say that’s the wind,” I says to Catty.
“Now watch,” says he, and I settled back to watch.