The men of
the family were as helpless as the women. All were waiting and watching
for some nameless calamity, weighed down by that overwhelming,
paralyzing dread of the unknown which unnerves the bravest and makes the
most powerful utterly powerless. The old ladies, trembling and silent,
clung close to the chimney-corner, scarcely looking at one another. The
judge and his nephew were sitting in silence near the front door which
had been opened on account of the sudden heat. They got up hurriedly,
and turned nervously, startled even by the faint rustle of Ruth's skirts
on the stairs. And before they could speak, the strained stillness was
violently torn by a sudden loud, shrill sound, such as none of the
terrified listeners had ever heard before--a long, unearthly shriek,
which seemed to come from neither brute nor human. For a moment not a
cry was uttered, not a word was spoken, and terrified eyes stared
unseeingly into whitening faces. And then the judge, suddenly realizing
what the sound was, broke into shaken, painful laughter.
"It is the whistle of the steamboat--the first steamboat on the Ohio.
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