THE SMOKY HILL SECRET.
It having been decided to begin the summer school a few weeks earlier
than at first intended, it became necessary for me to go after the
teacher; so it was arranged that I should drive over to Smoky Hill on
Friday, and return any time the following day.
My mother shared the feeling that the neighborhood where Agnes lived was
superior to ours--although none of us knew why we had this
impression--and after taking unusual pains with my toilet, she asked Jo
to cut my hair, which he kindly did just before I drove away in the
wagon, from the high seat of which my short legs barely touched the
floor.
I knew nothing of the settlement except the direction, which was north,
and that the uncle with whom Agnes lived was named Biggs, but they said
I could easily inquire the way. The distance was twenty miles, and by
repeated inquiries I found that Mr. Biggs--who was called Little Biggs
by those living near him--lived in the first white house after crossing
the north fork of Bull River, and when I came in sight of the place I
knew it as well as if I had lived within hailing distance all my life.
It was just such a place as I expected to find; an aristocratic porch on
two sides of a house evidently built after the plans of an
architect--the first house of such pretensions I had ever seen--with a
gravel walk leading down to the gate, and a wide and neglected yard in
front. A broken and dismantled wind-mill stood in the barn-yard, and
around it was piled a great collection of farm machinery in an equally
advanced stage of decay, all rotting away for lack of care and use.
There was a general air of neglect everywhere, and I thought Mr. Biggs
was an indifferent farmer, or else an invalid. Boards were off the
fences, and gates off the hinges, and pigs roamed in every place where
they did not belong. A herd of them, attracted by the sound of my
wheels, dashed out from under the porch, and went snorting into the
vegetable garden through a broken fence. I noticed these things as I
stopped at a large gate intended for wagons to drive through, and while
wondering whether I had better drive in there, or tie the team and walk
up to the house. While debating the question I saw that a large,
boyish-looking young man was pitching hay near the barn, and, noticing
that he had stopped his work and was looking at me, I motioned for him
to come out. Impatiently throwing down his fork, he came out to the
fence, and, resting his chin on the top board, he looked at me with
great impudence.
“Does Mr. Biggs live here?” I civilly inquired.
“Yes, Mr. Biggs lives here,” he answered, drawling the first word as if
to express disgust.
“Well, then,” I said, “if you will open the gate I’ll come in.”
He threw it open with a bang, as if to express an unfavorable opinion of
me, and I drove through, and stopped down by the stables. He followed
sullenly, after banging the gate again, and, picking up his fork without
looking at me, went on with his pitching. I began to feel uncomfortable
at this cool reception, and inquired quite respectfully:--
“Is Mr. Biggs at home?”
“No,” the fellow replied, “he’s not at home,” plunging his fork
viciously into the hay as though he were wishing I was under it.
“Is Miss Agnes at home, then?”
“Yes, Miss Agnes is at home.” He looked up in better humor, as though
the name of Agnes was not so disagreeable as that of Biggs.
“Well, I’m told to stay here to-night, and take Agnes to her school
to-morrow. If you’ll show me where to stand the horses I’ll put them
away.”
He laid down his fork at this and went to look through the stables.
There seemed to be a spring somewhere near, for the stalls were oozy and
wet, and unfit for use, and the fellow was debating in his mind which
was the worst or the best one, I could not tell which. Finally he found
a place, but the feed boxes were gone; and then another, but it had no
place for the hay. I was following him around by this time, and said the
last one would do very well, as it was the best one there.
He helped me to unhitch the horses, and while we were about it I looked
up at the house and saw Agnes at one of the windows. She went away
immediately, however, and I supposed she would be down to welcome me;
but she didn’t come, and I began to feel very uncomfortable. I had
consoled myself for the rudeness of the young man by the thought that he
would be very much ashamed of his incivility when Agnes came running
down to meet me; but she didn’t come, and kept away from the window, and
I was uncertain whether I had better return home or seek shelter for the
night at another house.
I noticed in the meantime that the fellow helping me was a giant in
stature, and that he had a very little head, on which was perched a hat
evidently bought for one of the children. The band and shape being gone,
it looked very much like an inverted V.
“I suppose you are the preacher’s boy?” he said, after eying me a long
while, as though that was a very good reason why he should dislike me.
On my replying that such was the case, he looked at me as if thinking I
was larger or smaller than he had imagined, and continued apparently in
better humor:--
“I have heard of you. I live here. I’m the hired man. My name is Big
Adam; lazy Adam, _she_ calls me.”
I had heard that little eyes denoted cunning, and little ears great
curiosity, and Big Adam’s were so particularly small that I determined
to be very wary of him during my stay.
“She owns the farm, though Biggs pretends to own it,” Big Adam went on,
“but, while they do not agree in this, they agree that Big Adam hasn’t
enough to do, and is very lazy, and between them I have a great deal of
trouble. I do all the work that is done here, and though you may think
from looking around that I am not kept very busy, I am. There are four
hundred acres here, and they expect me to keep it in a high state of
cultivation. You see how well I succeed; it’s the worst-looking place on
earth.”
I began to understand him better, and said it looked very well when I
drove up.
“May be it does--from the road, but I haven’t been out there for a year
to see. I am kept too busy. But if you stay here long I’ll take you out
into the field, and show you weeds higher than your head. Instead of
spending the money to mend the stables and fences, they buy more land
with it, to give Big Adam something to do; for they are always saying
that I am fat from idleness. I am fat, but not from idleness. I haven’t
had time this spring to comb my hair. Look at it.”
He took off the Λ-shaped hat, and held his head down for
me to see. It reminded me of the brush heaps in which we found rabbits
at home, and I wished Jo had come along; he would have been delighted to
shingle it.
“But you go into the house,” he said, putting on his hat again, and,
taking up the fork he had laid down to hunt a stall for my horses:
“you’ll hear enough of lazy Adam in there. They’ll tell you I’m lazy and
shiftless, because I can’t do the work of a dozen men; and they’ll tell
you I am surly, because I can’t cheerfully go ahead and do all they ask
me to. A fine opinion of Big Adam you’ll have when you go away; but I
ask you to notice while you are here if Big Adam is not always at work:
and Agnes will tell you--she is the only one among them who pretends to
tell the truth--that she has never seen me idle. But go on into the
house; I am not allowed to talk to strangers.”
Accepting this suggestion, I went through a gate which was torn off its
hinges and lying flat in the path, and, walking up the steps, I knocked
timidly at the front door. While waiting for some one to answer my rap,
I noticed a door-plate hanging on one screw, and, careening my head
around, read “Lytle Biggs.” I then understood why his neighbors called
him Little Biggs--it was his name.
I hadn’t time to congratulate myself on this discovery, for just then
the door-plate flew in, and Agnes stood before me. Although she was
friendly to me as usual there was a constraint in her manner that I
could not understand, and as she led the way in she looked as though she
was expecting the house to blow up.
“My uncle is away,” she said, confusedly, after we were seated in a room
opening off from the hall where I had entered, “but we expect him home
to-night. My mother is not well, and demands a great deal of care, or I
should have come down to the gate to meet you when you drove up.”
She was so ill at ease that I hurried to explain my errand, and I
thought she was greatly relieved to know I had not come on a visit.
“I shall be ready in the morning at any time you are,” she said; and I
wondered she could leave her mother, for I had been fearing that perhaps
I should have to go back without her.
There was a great romp and noise in the room above the one in which we
sat, and she looked out through the door leading into the hall as if
half expecting to see somebody come tumbling down the stairs.
“My uncle’s children,” she said, seeing I wondered at the noise. “He has
eight.”
I wondered she had not told of them before, and then I remembered that
she seldom talked of her uncle’s family or of her mother.
“How are they all?” I inquired, thinking I must say something.
There was a great crash in the room overhead and a cry of pain, and
Agnes went quickly to the door to listen. Being convinced that one of
them had fallen over a chair, she came back, and replied to my question.
“Very noisy,” she said, half laughingly. “I fear they will annoy you; it
is so quiet at your house, and there is so much confusion here.”
I said, “Oh! not at all,” not knowing what other reply to make.
“My uncle Lytle”--I pricked up my ears at this, as her pronunciation of
her uncle’s name was different from that given it by his neighbors--“my
uncle Lytle is trying to bring them up in town fashion here in the
country, and they are seldom allowed to go out of doors, so that they
can’t be blamed for being rude and bad. All of them except the baby
would be out at the stables with Big Adam if they were given the
opportunity, but their father’s orders are to keep them away from the
stables, and in the house. So we make the best of them.”
Just then they all came tearing out into the hall above to the stair
rail, and I knew they were peeping over; but some one came out hurriedly
after them, and, driving them all back into the room again, shut the
door with a bang.
“They are anxious to see you,” Agnes said, smiling. “They have the
greatest curiosity imaginable. There will be no peace until they are
allowed to look at you.”
Feeling that I was an intruder in the house, for some reason, I
suggested that she let them come down, promising I would amuse them as
best I could. She thought a moment, and then, excusing herself, went
out. After a long time I heard her coming back with them. Six of them
rushed into the room ahead of her, and, taking up a position behind the
chairs, looked at me curiously. The other two she carried in her arms,
one of them being an infant not more than four or five months old.
They seemed a queer lot to me, their clothing being of a pattern I had
never seen before, and I noticed that the boys wore their hair in long
curls, and that their frocks were braided. All of their faces were pale,
which did not result solely from their being lately washed, and the
older boys were dressed in short trousers, and wore shoes, though it was
summer, a peculiarity which attracted my attention particularly, because
most of the boys I had known went barefooted. Agnes placed the baby on
my knee, and I soon had all the children about me, asking questions and
going through my pockets. Indeed, I succeeded very well in amusing them.
While they were playing around, I heard some one come down the stairs,
and go down the hall to a door which I judged led into the kitchen.
Presently Agnes went out too, and I supposed they were making
arrangements for supper, which thought was probably suggested by the
fact that it was late, and that I was very hungry. The children amused
themselves with me for a considerable time, and were more noisy than
ever, when unfortunately one of them fell headlong over a chair and set
up a most terrible cry. Immediately a little dried-up old woman came
hurrying into the room, who, picking up the screaming one, and roughly
taking the baby out of my arms, drove them all up the stairs before her,
slapping and banging them as they went, so that they were all screaming
by the time the door up stairs closed upon them.
While she was collecting them I saw that the newcomer’s hair was twisted
behind her head in a tight little knot, and that she was very slender,
and very short; that her features were small and sharp, and dried-up
like a mummy’s, and that, altogether, she was the most repulsive-looking
creature I had ever seen. I half expected that she would give me a rap
as she went out, she looked so sour and ugly. I supposed she was a
servant; possibly Adam’s mother, and when Agnes came in, which she did a
moment after, looking very much frightened, I had it in my mind to say
that the old woman of the sky had swept the children away with a
broomstick.
“I was afraid they would annoy you,” she said hurriedly, as though it
was necessary to say something before I could remark on the queer little
old woman who had driven them away.
I was about to reply that we were getting along very well until one of
them fell down, when she continued:--“My uncle has just driven up. He is
coming in.”
At that moment the door opened softly, and a very small and handsomely
dressed man stepped into the room. He spoke to Agnes pleasantly, and as
he looked inquiringly at me, she explained:--
“One of my pupils from Fairview, Ned Westlock. I shall go home with him
to-morrow, as the school opens a week earlier than was expected.”
I knew now why his neighbors called him Little Biggs--because he was
very short, and very thin, and very little.
“Ah! Ned Westlock.”
After he had said this, he looked at me very attentively while he
removed his gloves. Placing them in his tall hat, he set both away, and
came back to me.
“I am very glad to know you,” Mr. Biggs said. “I am glad to have you a
guest at our house.”
This was encouraging, as nobody else had said as much, and I felt
better.
“I need not apologize,” he said, “for the rough but honest ways of us
farmers,” looking admiringly at his thin legs, and brushing at a speck
of dirt which seemed to be on one of them, “for I believe you come of an
agricultural family yourself.”
I was surprised at this reference to his rough ways, for he was
extremely fastidious in his dress and manner. I managed to admit,
however, that I came of an agricultural family.
“Those of us who live in the country, and earn our bread in the sweat of
our brow,” Mr. Biggs went on, seating himself beside me, “cannot be
particular. Our clothing, our food, and our ways are rough, but
substantial and honest. We have other matters to look after, such as
following the plough, sowing the grain, and tossing the hay. We may have
our ambitions like other men, but they are dwarfed and bent by holding
the plough, and pitching the hay. When did you come, and how long do you
stay?”
I replied that I had arrived but a few hours before, and that I would
depart the next day at any hour Agnes was ready.
“I am sorry,” Mr. Biggs was good enough to say, “I should be delighted
to show you how we carry on a four hundred acre farm. Other great
farmers have from four to a dozen hired men about them, but Big Adam and
I do all the work here; and we are equal to it, though it keeps us very
busy, as you will imagine. We have no time for the fine arts, you may be
certain.”
He ran on gayly in this way, making himself out in ignorance and muscle
the equal of one of our Fairview farmers, although he was really nothing
else to my mind than a fop, until Agnes came in and said we were to walk
out to supper. There was no one in the supper room when we entered it,
and although I expected other members of the family every moment, none
came. Agnes was there most of the time, but did not sit down, and
supplied the place of a servant.
“Those of us who live in the country,” said Mr. Biggs, helping me to
meat and bread with the greatest ceremony, “cannot be particular as to
what we eat, except that it is substantial and hearty. Meat and bread
and milk make muscle, and muscle is in great demand on a farm. Big Adam
and I find a great deal of it necessary in tilling these four hundred
acres, therefore we insist on plenty of plain and substantial food.
Excuse me, if I eat like a hog.”
The supper was a very good one, but he talked a great deal about its
being plain but hearty; and although he was dainty in his eating, and
ate nothing but bread and milk, and toasted bread and tea, he kept
apologizing for his ravenous appetite. He had something to say, too,
about shovelling in his food with a knife, and bolting it--he did
neither, but on the contrary was very delicate--and as he kept watching
me, I thought that he must be apologizing for his guest, which made me
very uncomfortable at my bad manners, for up to that time I had not been
backward in falling to. But as he continued to denounce his unnatural
craving for food, and frequently expressed the fear that the meal lacked
so much of what I was accustomed to, that I could not possibly make out
a comfortable supper, I finally made up my mind he did not mean me at
all.
When I had finished he was waiting for me, and we adjourned to the room
in which I had played with the children. Lighting a cigar (which he said
was a very poor one, but which he observed in the course of the evening,
as an example of his extravagance, had cost twenty cents) he took a
dressing-gown from a closet, and, putting it on, sat down before me, the
picture of luxurious ease.
While we sat there I heard the family of eight, accompanied by their
mother and the little old woman who had frightened me, come banging down
the stairs, and file into the supper room, where there were a steady
noise and wrangle until they had finished and gone up the stairs again.
I heard Big Adam protesting to some one that it was not pleasant to be
always “jawed at,” and that he did all he could; but when the argument
threatened to become boisterous, I heard a pleasanter voice intercede,
and establish a peace, and I was sure this was Agnes’s. Mr. Biggs
stopped once or twice to listen to the confusion, as if trying to hear
what was being said, but recollecting that if he could hear, I could as
well, he began talking again to draw my attention from it. He tried to
make me believe the children were making the disturbance, and said:--
“There can be no order in a house full of children, and very little
comfort.” He stopped to think a moment, but the uproar in the supper
room was so great that he went on trying to draw my attention away from
it. “I confess to thinking something of them, but every pleasure they
bring is accompanied by inconvenience, expense, and annoyance. Have I
told you yet that I am a philosopher?”
I had suspected that something was wrong with him, though I could not
tell what it was. I replied politely, however, that he had not.
“Well, I am one,” the little man said with a show of pride. “A great
many men regard children as blessings. Now I have failed to discover any
kind of a blessing or pleasure in being called up in the middle of the
night to run for a doctor when there is croup in the house. Usually,
too, in such cases the medical man lives a great many miles away, over a
rough road. Whenever I go to bed early to make up lost sleep, or come
home particularly tired from tossing the hay or holding the plough,
either Annie, or Bennie, or Carrie, or Davie, or Effie, or Fannie, or
Georgie, or Harry, is sick, and I am compelled to go for a doctor. This
never fails if the night is very wet, the roads unusually heavy, or the
weather particularly cold. While everybody admires little children, I am
sure they would be much more popular if their teeth came more easily;
and that there would be a greater demand for them if they did not take a
hundred different diseases to which they are not exposed. I am that kind
of philosopher.”
The fire in the end of his cigar having about gone out, from holding it
in his hand and waving it at me, he revived it with a great deal of
puffing, and went on:--
“Understand me, Ned Westlock; I do not complain. I am like other men,
except that I am not a fool; and while I accept the bitter with the
sweet, I point out the bitter and refuse to call it palatable. I am at a
loss to understand, for example, why the Creator is more considerate of
pigs than He is of children; for I believe pigs cut their teeth before
birth, and seldom die except when fat from good health, and at the hands
of a butcher. Children, on the other hand”--he used his right hand to
represent the pigs, and his left to represent the children--“are never
well, and for every tooth there is an insolent doctor with a bill, to
say nothing of measles, coughs, rashes, and fevers. I have seen it
estimated that it requires three thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine
dollars and thirty-five or forty cents to raise a baby to manhood or
womanhood. A pig may be raised to maturity with a few hundred buckets of
slop, a few bushels of corn, and a wisp of hay occasionally for a bed.
What do you think of that?”
As he looked at me as though I had been stubbornly arguing the cause of
the children, I replied that the pigs had the best of it, so far,
decidedly.
“If you have never talked with a philosopher before, you may never have
had your attention called to the fact, which possibly has escaped your
own notice, that children do not appreciate good treatment, as do pigs
and other animals. The very worst thing you can do for a boy is to treat
him well. Where do you find the good boys?”
He made a pause as if expecting a reply, and I said, “I don’t know,” but
I knew at once that he was impatient that I had replied, for he wanted
to do all the talking himself.
“In families where boys are always hungry and abused,” he resumed.
“Where do you find your bad boys? In families where they are treated
well, of course. A boy who has plenty to eat, and plenty to wear, and
nothing to do, is always impudent and worthless; and parents who go to
trouble and expense that their children may be happy and idle pay a big
price for a pestilence. I do not pretend to say that in practice I am
more of a philosopher than my neighbors; but it is a fact, nevertheless,
that the pig that slips into the house and litters it up is beaten with
a broomstick until he understands, when tempted on future occasions,
that the practice is dangerous. If the pigs get on the porch, and you
open the door suddenly, they run away in great haste, having been taught
by harsh means that they are not expected there; and if we would teach
children in the same way, we should have more comfort with them. But
practically we regard the training of pigs as more important than the
training of children, and suffer much discomfort in consequence. I
recognize certain inexorable masters, and obey them to avoid
uncomfortable consequences; and a child must have a master, or it will
become disagreeable and annoying.”
He stopped to listen to the noise made by his family up stairs. It was
very uproarious, and I thought he was regretting that his philosophy had
not been made to bear some practical fruit.
“If you were a young man,” he continued, coming out of a brown study,
“and had driven from Fairview to ask my advice on this question, I
should advise you thus: ‘Sir, if you covet the society of little
children, hire them to play at your house until you are tired; for then
you can send them away, and enjoy the quiet following their absence. You
will find that pleasant enough, but if you have a house full of your
own, that alters the case; for like the deserving poor, they then are
always with you--in sickness as well as in health, and when they are
disagreeable as well as when they are not.’ That would be my candid
advice; you may accept it, or let it alone, as you choose.”
He waved the hand at me which he had previously used to represent the
pigs, as though I had been asking him to counsel me on the subject, and
as if he were impatient that I did not accept his advice at once. But
recollecting himself, he took a delicate knife from his pocket, and
after profuse apologies for his ill-manners, proceeded to pare his
finger nails, looking occasionally at me as if doubting my ability to
understand his philosophy, for I had scarcely said a word in reply to
it.
“I understand your father is a singer,” he said, after his fingers were
mentally pronounced satisfactory.
I replied with a show of pride that he had the finest voice ever heard
in Fairview church, and that he was famous for it.
“He ought to stop it,” Mr. Biggs abruptly said. “People enjoy his
singing, I have no doubt, but if he were a friend of mine--I have not
even the pleasure of his acquaintance--I would say to him, ‘Quit
singing, Reverend John, if you would become great.’ How does it come he
is not in the Legislature? Because he sings. The people do not associate
statesmanship with singing. When a man is honored for singing, he is
honored for little else. Did you ever know a great man who sang?”
I replied that I had not, for I had never known a great man.
“Well,” he answered curtly, “I know them all, and none of them sing. Or
play. The darkey who can sing and dance is popular with an idle crowd,
but the solid people who have gardens to spade, or walls to whitewash,
avoid the musical negro, for his talent is likely to be exhausted in
that direction. I don’t pretend to know why it is against a man that he
is able to entertain people with his voice, or with the skill of his
fingers; I only know it is the case. It would be a kindness for somebody
to say as much to Reverend John; you may convey the information to him,
with my compliments, if you wish.”
I had been wishing all evening that Agnes would come in, and ask me to
sing, as I thought I had talent in that direction, and even debated in
my mind whether I would roar the “Hunter’s Horn,” or “Glorious Day of
Rest” for the amusement of my host; but I was now glad she had been so
considerate of my feelings, and spared me the humiliation. I was quite
certain that if she should ask me to sing after what Mr. Biggs had said,
I should declare I had never attempted to do such a ridiculous thing.
“Every man who tells an uncomfortable truth,” Mr. Biggs began again,
after lighting a fresh cigar by the remains of the old one, “is called a
beast. I am called a beast in this neighborhood (which is known for
taxing and voting purposes as Smoky Hill) because I tell a great many
unpalatable truths; I have eyes and intelligence, therefore I cannot
help noticing (and mentioning) that the people of this country pay more
attention to raising thorough-bred stock than to raising thorough-bred
children which you must admit is ridiculous. I hear that The. Meek, for
instance, has his stable full of fine stock, and his house full of
sore-eyed children. The. Meek is evidently an ass; I’m glad I do not
know him. If I did, I should make myself disagreeable by mentioning the
circumstance.”
I may as well mention here that Mr. Biggs was not the kind of man he
claimed to be. On the contrary, he made his living by indorsing the
follies of other people, but he had pointed out their mistakes to
himself so often that I suppose he really believed he was generally
despised for telling the truth.
“We have many of the same kind of men in Smoky Hill. It affords me
pleasure to assure you that I am unpopular with them, and they take
great comfort in the belief that I am likely to die in a year or two of
consumption. But I have already had the satisfaction of attending the
funerals of five men who predicted that I was not long for the world; I
expect to help bury the rest of them at intervals in the future. While I
get a little stronger every year, by care and common sense, they get a
little weaker, by carelessness and ignorance, and finally they are
buried, with L. Biggs, Esq., the consumptive, looking contentedly on.
The trouble with these men is that they eat everything coming in their
way, like pigs, lacking observation to teach them that a greater number
of people die of over-feeding than die of over-drinking or over-working.
The last Smoky Hill glutton that died was the Most Worthy Chief of a
temperance society, and he was always quarreling with his wife because
she didn’t have pie for breakfast. For my part, I detest pie.”
I was about to say that while I agreed with him in everything else, I
should be compelled to make an exception in the pie particular; but he
did not give me opportunity, for he proceeded:--
“In my visits to the homes of cultured but unwise people, I am
frequently tempted to do violence to my stomach by eating late at night,
but recollecting the fate of the Smoky Hill men, I respectfully decline.
When I am offered cake, and nightmare in other forms, I do not greedily
accept and devour everything set before me, but instead I say, ‘If you
have cold oatmeal mush, or a bit of graham bread, I will refresh myself
with that, but no cake, I thank you, although the assortment is fine,
and reflects great credit on the lady of the house.’ Thus I preserve my
health, and prove my philosophy. But no doubt I am wearying you; I will
show you to bed.”
He did not ask me whether I was tired of his company, but picked up the
light as though he could decide questions for boys without their
assistance, and leading the way up stairs, I meekly followed. Opening a
door after reaching the upper floor, he gave me the light, said good
night, and went down again, as though he had not had enough of his own
company, and would sit up a while longer.
There were two comfortable beds in the room to which Mr. Biggs had shown
me, and Big Adam occupied one of them already, sound asleep. His clothes
were piled up in a heap by the side of it, with the Λ-shaped hat on top,
ready to go on the first thing in the morning. He mumbled occasionally
in his sleep, and I thought he was saying he did the best he could, and
that it wasn’t pleasant to be “jawed at,” which made me think again of
the terrible old woman with the parchment face, the little head, the
little body, and the little knot of hair on the back of her head. I felt
like kneeling down by my bed and praying that the queer woman might not
have a habit of walking through the house at night, accompanied by the
kitchen butcher-knife freshly sharpened at the grindstone, for there was
no lock on the door. But speedily occupying the other bed, and putting
out the light, I had hardly begun thinking of the curious family before
I was sound asleep.