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Ten-fifteen The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft htness, The water pelted panes, running down the charred west side where the house had been burned evenly free of its white paint The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places Here the silhouette in paint of a raph, a woes burned on wood in one titanic instant, a se of a thrown ball, and opposite hiirl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down

The five spots of paint--the man, the woman, the children, the ball--remained The rest was a thin charcoaled layer

The gentle sprinkler rain filled the garden with falling light

Until this day, hoell the house had kept its peace How carefully it had inquired, "Who goes there? What's the password?" and, getting no answer fro cats, it had shut up its s and drawn shades in an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia

It quivered at each sound, the house did If a sparrow brushed a , the shade snapped up The bird, startled, flew off! No, not even a bird must touch the house!

The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, sone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly

Twelve noon

A dog whined, shivering, on the front porch

The front door recognized the dog voice and opened The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores,to pick up ry at inconvenience

For not a leaf fragment blew under the door but what the wall panels flipped open and the copper scrap rats flashed swiftly out The offending dust, hair, or paper, seized in miniature steel jaas raced back to the burrows There, down tubes which fed into the cellar, it was dropped into the sighing vent of an incinerator which sat like evil Baal in a dark corner

The dog ran upstairs, hysterically yelping to each door, at last realizing, as the house realized, that only silence was here

It sniffed the air and scratched the kitchen door Behind the door, the stove waspancakes which filled the house with a rich baked odor and the scent of maple syrup

The dog frothed at the , its eyes turned to fire It ran wildly in circles, biting at its tail, spun in a frenzy, and died It lay in the parlor for an hour

Two o'clock, sang a voice

Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiray leaves in an electrical wind