"'Bout what, Clarence?"
"'Bout Mr. Terry."
Grandma put down her fork. "That's the man who moved here to Chincoteague last fall, ain't it?"
As Grandpa nodded his head, Paul broke in. "He's the man who has to live in a kind of electric cradle."
"That's the one. His bed has to rock, Idy, or he dies. And now with the electric off, he may be gaspin' for air like a fish out o' water. Me and Paul could go over and pump that bed by hand."
He hurried into the sitting room, to the telephone on the little table by the window. "Lucy," he told the operator, "please to get me Miz' Terry. She could be needin' help."
Grandma put Grandpa's plate back on the stove. Everyone stopped eating to listen.
"That you, Miz' Terry?" Grandpa's voice boomed above wind and storm.
Pause.
"You don't know me, but this here's Clarence Beebe over to Pony Ranch, and I was jes' a-wonderin' how ye'd like four mighty strong arms to pump yer husband's bed by hand."