Northrup was more interested than he had been in many a day. The story thrilled him. The girl of the yellow house loomed large upon his vision and he began to understand. He was not one to scoff at things beyond the pale of exact science; his craft was one that took much for granted that could not be reduced to fact. Standing at the door of the little yellow house he had become a victim of suggestion. That accounted for it. The mists were passing. He had not been such an ass, after all.
"So! that is your old doctor's place down by the crossroads?" he said with a genuine sense of relief.
"What became of his son--you said he had a boy?" Northrup was gathering the threads in his hands. Nothing must escape him; it was all grist.
"Oh! Larry came off and on the scene. There are them as think ole Doc didn't treat Larry fair and square. I don't know, but anyway, just before ole Doc was struck with that stroke that finished him, Larry came home and seemed to be forgiving enough, if there had been any wrong done. He had considerable education; ole Doc had given him that chance, but Larry drifted--allas was, and still is, a drifter. We all stand pat for the feller on account of his father and Mary-Clare. It was a blamed risky thing, though, Larry's marrying Mary-Clare! I allas will hold to that!"
Once, when Northrup was a young boy, he had been shocked by electricity. The memory of his experience often recurred to him in moments of stress. He had been standing within a few yards of the tree that had been shattered, and he had fallen unconscious. When he came to, he was vividly aware of the slightest details of sight and sound surrounding him. His senses seemed to have been quickened during the lapse of time. He winced at the light; the flickering of leaves above him hurt; the song of birds beat against his brain with sweet clamour, and he vaguely wondered what had happened to him; where he had been?
In like manner Northrup, now, was aware of a painful keenness of his senses. Heathcote looked large and his voice vibrated in the quiet room; Aunt Polly seemed dwindling, physically, while something about her--the light playing on her knitting needles and spectacles, probably--radiated. The crackling logs were like claps of thunder. Northrup pulled himself to an upright position as one does who resists hypnotism.