In there was a kind of a little gallery around the edge and you could look down in through the middle. It smelled like dried wood in there; it smelled kind of like an attic. It was terribly hot. I saw something hanging that I thought was an old dried rag and when I grabbed it, swhh, just like that it gave me a start, and I let go pretty quick because it was a bat. We threw it out through the opening. There were a couple more there but we didn’t bother them. They looked just like rags that had been hung up wet and got dry hanging there—stiff like.
“I LET GO PRETTY QUICK BECAUSE IT WAS A BAT.”
None of us said anything but just did what Hervey did as near as we could in a little, cramped place like that. We didn’t lean on that old wooden railing around the gallery—safety first. Down through that open space hung a rope; it went almost to the bottom. There was a floor down there; I guessed it was the vestibule of the old church.
Up above us it was quite light because there were openings on the four sides. There were a lot of beams braced all crisscross like, every which way and there was a big bell hanging from them. The rope hung down from above that bell.
We could look right up into the inside of the bell, and there was a big spider-web across it and a great big yellow spider there. The rope up there was frayed where it touched the edge of the bell when the bell swung. Hervey tried to reach out to the rope but the railing creaked and I pulled him back. If we could have talked it wouldn’t have been so bad, but it seemed kind of spooky with no one saying anything.
There was a little ladder fastened tight against the side going up to that place above. I guess nobody ever went up there except maybe to fix the bell. Hervey started up. It was hard because the ladder was tight against the wall and we didn’t have much foothold. But I wouldn’t admit he could do anything that I couldn’t do and I guess the other fellows felt the same about it.
There wasn’t any place to sit or stand up there except the beams. It was kind of like being in a tree. We perched in them the best we could. The wood was awful dry and every time we touched it with our hands we got splinters. But one thing, we could see out all over the country; we could see hills and woods and trees and fields with stone walls that looked just like lines. It was pretty hard to keep from speaking. Away, way off I saw a kind of blue strip and I knew it was the Hudson River. I was just starting to say “Some bird’s-eye view,” but I caught myself in time.
Hervey was looking down out of one of the openings and he caught my arm and pointed. I looked down on the road. It was a crooked, rocky road, but it looked all even and nice from up there. You could see it away, way off just like a fresh place made with a plane, sort of.
Going along the road was an old hay wagon with oxen and a man with a great big straw hat driving them. On the wagon, sticking away out at both ends, was a ladder. I looked straight down below and the ladder was gone from against the steeple.