Warning Hill by John P. Marquand

words passed through Tommy’s thoughts, stilling them by their somber magic.
    â€œâ€˜Thou turnest man to destruction,’” Aunt Sarah read, “‘And sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.’”
    Aunt Sarah paused and adjusted her glasses.
    â€œHo, ho,” she remarked, “I don’t know why that’s so consoling. Well—well, they’ll read it over me, I have no doubt. Tommy, what makes you jump so? Can’t you ever sit still?”
    â€œAunt Sarah,” said Tommy, “I heard a gun.”
    â€œAnd why should you jump,” said Aunt Sarah, “when you hear a gun, I should admire to know? It’s your father wasting time shooting bottles—always wasting time.… Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up—’”
    Dimly Tommy heard the words. They were like solemn music in an enormous vaulted place. Aunt Sarah was nothing but a faint shadow. Her voice was like a stranger’s voice, speaking from a vast distance, and awful in the certainty of knowledge. As he thought of it afterwards, he knew he could not have been afraid any longer. He was a little boy in a dream, so immense that fear itself was gone.
    â€œAunt Sarah!” cried Tommy. She could have had no difficulty hearing him, for his voice had risen almost to a scream. “There’s something coming up the stairs!”
    â€œNonsense!” said Aunt Sarah, “‘… For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told.’”
    But Tommy was right. There was some one on the stairs. There were hasty stumbling footsteps.
    â€œMrs. Michael!” Tommy knew the voice as that of Elmer, the hired man. “Mrs. Michael, Ma’am!”
    Aunt Sarah walked to her door surprisingly fast.
    â€œMrs. Michael’s in her room,” she said. “What is it?”
    Elmer was in the doorway. His face was white as paper; his hands were shaking like his voice.
    â€œSpeak up!” said Aunt Sarah sharply. “What is it? Have you lost your tongue?”
    â€œIt’s Mr. Michael, Ma’am!” began Elmer. “Oh, Lord, Ma’am—Mr. Michael’s killed himself.”
    For just a moment in the dull silence that followed, Tommy did not think. He seemed to have heard only vaguely what Elmer said, and his eyes were on his Great-aunt Sarah, a grim old woman in a black dress with her hand cupped behind her ear, a dead old tree, he thought long afterwards, which stood unbending before a gale.
    â€œKilled himself?” Aunt Sarah repeated. “Killed himself, you said?”
    â€œOh, Lord, Ma’am,” Elmer’s voice broke, “I was down to the stables, Ma’am, and I heard a shot out back by the shore, and I ran there, because it didn’t seem right shooting, and there he was, his head all—”
    â€œThat will do,” Aunt Sarah said. She swayed slightly and her shoulders shook as though at last the wind had struck her. “It was an accident, of course. Mr. Michael stumbled and fell. Do you understand me? Stumbled and fell. Now make for town and get the doctor.”
    â€œIt won’t do no good, Ma’am,” said Elmer. “His head—Jim Street helped me lift him up—”
    Aunt Sarah’s voice checked him as surely as a hand across his mouth.
    â€œRun for the doctor,” she said. “It was an accident—remember to say that.”
    It was a night of faces. That was what always stayed fast in Tommy’s memory, faces lighted by something strange to Tommy Michael, partly of wonder, partly of awe and fear. Jim Street’s was the next face. It appeared at Aunt Sarah’s door a second after Elmer’s had left. Mr. Street was crying as a boy might cry, except without a