- end_line
- 452
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 374
- text
-
"You have been taking too much of that punch, I fear. That sad habit
grows on you. Ah, that I should ever see you thus staggering at night
into your chamber."
"Wife," hoarsely whispered I, "there is--is something tick-ticking in
the cedar-parlor."
"Poor old man--quite out of his mind--I knew it would be so. Come to
bed; come and sleep it off."
"Wife, wife!"
"Do, do come to bed. I forgive you. I won't remind you of it to-morrow.
But you must give up the punch-drinking, my dear. It quite gets the
better of you."
"Don't exasperate me," I cried now, truly beside myself; "I will quit
the house!"
"No, no! not in that state. Come to bed, my dear. I won't say another
word."
The next morning, upon waking, my wife said nothing about the
past night's affair, and, feeling no little embarrassment myself,
especially at having been thrown into such a panic, I also was silent.
Consequently, my wife must still have ascribed my singular conduct to
a mind disordered, not by ghosts, but by punch. For my own part, as I
lay in bed watching the sun in the panes, I began to think that much
midnight reading of Cotton Mather was not good for man; that it had a
morbid influence upon the nerves, and gave rise to hallucinations. I
resolved to put Cotton Mather permanently aside. That done, I had no
fear of any return of the ticking. Indeed, I began to think that what
seemed the ticking in the room, was nothing but a sort of buzzing in my
ear.
As is her wont, my wife having preceded me in rising, I made a
deliberate and agreeable toilet. Aware that most disorders of the mind
have their origin in the state of the body, I made vigorous use of
the flesh-brush, and bathed my head with New England rum, a specific
once recommended to me as good for buzzing in the ear. Wrapped in my
dressing gown, with cravat nicely adjusted, and fingernails neatly
trimmed, I complacently descended to the little cedar-parlor to
breakfast.
What was my amazement to find my wife on her knees, rummaging about
the carpet nigh the little apple-tree table, on which the morning meal
was laid, while my daughters, Julia and Anna, were running about the
apartment distracted.
"Oh, papa, papa!" cried Julia, hurrying up to me, "I knew it would be
so. The table, the table!"
"Spirits! spirits!" cried Anna, standing far away from it, with pointed
finger.
"Silence!" cried my wife. "How can I hear it, if you make such a
noise? Be still. Come here, husband; was this the ticking you spoke of?
Why don't you move? Was this it? Here, kneel down and listen to it.
Tick, tick, tick!--don't you hear it now?"
"I do, I do," cried I, while my daughters besought us both to come away
from the spot.
Tick, tick, tick!
Right from under the snowy cloth, and the cheerful urn, and the smoking
milk-toast, the unaccountable ticking was heard.
"Ain't there a fire in the next room, Julia," said I, "let us breakfast
there, my dear," turning to my wife--"let us go--leave the table--tell
Biddy to remove the things."
And so saying I was moving towards the door in high self-possession,
when my wife interrupted me.
"Before I quit this room, I will see into this ticking," she said with
energy.
- title
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