“Oh, fairly crying out for attention. No one talked of anything else at the cocktail party. Going to crash down one of these days.”

“Hits the spot,” the old man said, holding up his glass.

“It’s been reported. But you have to din it in.”

Rosie siphoned more soda onto whisky. “Now what’s that? That noise?”

“The Big Vac, that’s what it is.” Mrs. Lauder listened. “Must have reached the Russells’ property. You’ll be hearing plenty of that this fall. I promise you.”

“A machine for the leaves, is that it?”

“Why, just fabulous, the way it sucks them up. Whoosh, and it’s all over. I’m saying, Dad—the Big Vac.”

“What a difference. Eh, Mother?”

“Something,” said Rosie, “that one doesn’t hear of in New York.”

“New York,” the old man said. “I wouldn’t live there if you paid me. Too much racket.”

Mrs. Lauder broke a cracker in two. “Then you zoom back on Monday?”

“Early,” said Rosie.

“Racket in both senses,” the old man said, with a gust of laughter.

“Uh-oh. Get a load of that. Sounds like rain, Dad.”

Rosie went to the window. “Teddy. Teddy.”

A voice called to her, “Bang bang. You’re dead.”

“Children,” said Mrs. Lauder.

“Teddy,” Rosie said.

“Nice. But not restful. What are you doing, Dad?”

The old man had taken off his hearing aid to examine it. He fumbled with the lamp beside his chair.

“It’s a pull, Dad. A pull, Dad … That’s got it.… Just listen to that. Thunder yet. We’d better be whizzing along.”

“Which way do you go?”

“Turn up Roaring Brook Road, and shoot straight across from there. Home before you can say Knife. Come on, Dad. Snap out of it.”

“Lightning,” said Rosie, at the door. “Why don’t you wait?”

“Thanks, but no. Got to whip up something to eat. Friends said they’d call.”

“Listen to that, though.”

Mrs. Lauder waved. “The thing is not to get rattled.”

“Rosie.”

Rosie ran downstairs.

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“I was running Teddy’s bath. How did the nails go?”

“Those nails. What were the Lauders doing here?”

“Whooping it up. Oh—listen.”

“Let it ring.”

They sat together on the bottom stair. The furnace shuddered. There was honking on the highway, and a scream of brakes. Rosie said, “Bang bang. We’re alive.”

“What’s going on out there?”

“The Big Vac.”

“You haven’t told me about the Lauders.”

“They wouldn’t live in New York if we paid them.”

“Useless to offer, then. What did you say?”

Rosie said, “I held my peace.”

EDITOR’S NOTE