“But, Speed,” I said, “surely you didn’t believe that the earth was going to be swallowed by fire that next morning after you were so frightened?”
“Yes, I did, too,” he replied. “He was just agettin' out papers and handbills with great big type, and hollerin' there on the corner. It was enough to scare anybody. Why wouldn’t I? Just the same, I wasn’t the only one. There were hundreds—mostly everybody in Kokomo. I went over to see an old lady I knew, and she said she didn’t know if it would happen or not—she wasn’t sure.”
“You poor kid,” I mumbled.
“Well, what did you do, Speed, when you found you couldn’t get out of town?” inquired Franklin. “Why didn’t you walk out?”
“Yes, walk out,” replied Speed resentfully. “I have a picture of myself walking out, and Carmel forty miles away or more. I wanted to be with my mother when the earth burned up.”
“And you couldn’t make it by morning,” I commented.
“No, I couldn’t,” he replied.
“Well, then, what did you do?” persisted Franklin.
“Well, I went to see this old lady where I boarded once, and I just stayed with her. We sat and waited together.”
At this point I was troubled between a desire to laugh and to weep. This poor youth! And the wild-eyed J. Cadden McMickens! And Kokomo! And the hundreds who believed! Can’t you see Speed and the old lady—the young boy and the woman who didn’t know and couldn’t be sure, and Kokomo, and the Rev. J. Cadden McMic——