The earth opened under him. He fell and lay in a pit, his head taking a terrific blow from a laid water-pipe, and as he lost consciousness he had an impression as of an avalanche, set off by his fall, cascading down cool moist pellets of dirt upon his pants, his shoes, upon his coat, upon his spine, upon the back of his neck, his head, filling his mouth, his ears, his eyes, his nostrils . . .
The neighbor lady with the eggs wrapped in a napkin, knocked on Mr. Howard’s door the next day for five minutes. When she opened the door, finally, and walked in, she found nothing but specules of rugdust floating in the sunny air, the big halls were empty, the cellar smelled of coal and clinkers, and the attic had nothing in it but a rat, a spider, and a faded letter. “Funniest thing,” she said many times in the following years, “what ever happened to Mr. Howard.”
And adults, being what they are, never observant, paid no attention to the children playing “Poison” on Oak Bay Street, in all the following autumns. Even when the children leaped over one particular square of cement, twisted about and glanced at the marks on it which read:
“M. HOWARD—R.I.P.”
“Who’s Mr. Howard, Billy?”
“Aw, I guess he’s the guy who laid the cement.”
“What does R.I.P. mean?”
“Aw, who knows? You’re poison! You stepped on it!”
“Get along, get along, children; don’t stand on Mother’s path! Get along now!”
The End
