"The chimney wasn't struck by lightning, then."
"It was not lightning," asserted Mr. Schuler. "The wind knocked bricks from the top of the chimney. I saw one or two on the roof this morning. As you see, several fell down the chimney into the fireplace."
"I can't see how bricks from the top of the chimney could have made the crack in the kitchen side of the chimney and this crack in the back of the fireplace."
"Nor I," agreed Mr. Schuler. "The roar was tremendous. I could not believe that I was seeing rightly when I beheld only these few fallen bricks."
"It sounded as if the whole chimney had fallen," Mrs. Schuler confirmed her husband's assertion.
"Mrs. Peterson says it sounded to her like an explosion, sir," said Moya, who had been talking with the women on the porch. "Her room is right over this. The bricks fell through the chimney, banging it all the way, says she, and thin there was a roar like powder had gone off, as far as I can understand what she says."
"If Mrs. Paterno heard that she must have thought the Black Hand was getting in its fine work, sure enough," smiled Mr. Emerson.
"Praise be, her room is on the other side of the house. We were all wailing like banshees up there, but she no more than the rest. 'Tis better she is," and Moya nodded reassuringly to the grown-ups, who were, she knew, deeply interested in the Italian woman's recovery of her nervous strength.
"This explosion business I don't understand," Mr. Emerson said slowly to himself. "What did you find in the fireplace this morning, Moya? I wish you had left all the stuff here for me to see."
"I'm sorry, sir. I was only thinkin' about havin' it clean before breakfast. There was the bricks, sir, two of 'em; and a pile of soot and some bits of trash wid no meanin'--"