After a few minutes I
began to see dark shapes on either side of the road. Tall, thin,
irregular shapes, some high, some low, but with outlines all softened,
toned down by the banks of white vapor.
I started across the road to investigate and fell into a pile of jagged
masonry on the sidewalk. Through the nearness of the fog I could see
tumbled piles of bricks. The shapes still remained--spectres that seemed
to move in the light wind from the valley. An odor that was not of the
freshness of the morning assailed me. I climbed across the walk. No wall
of buildings barred my path, but I mounted higher on the piles of brick
and stones. A heavy black shape was now at my left hand. I looked up and
in the shadow there was no fog. I could see a crumbled swaying side wall
of a house that was. The odor I noticed was that caused by fire.
Sticking from the wall I could see the charred wood joists that once
supported the floor of the second story. Higher, the lifting fog
permitted me to see the waving boughs of a tree that hung over the house
that was, outlined against a clear sky. At my feet, sticking out of the
pile of bricks and stones, was the twisted iron fragments that was once
the frame of a child's bed.
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