While the farmer was in the stable I did not dare to stir, the hay being thick with seed and a fine substance that would shower below through the open floor at the slightest movement I made. Having finished his morning chores, the man left, and I had the barn to myself until about noon, as near as I could judge, when I was aroused from a sort of a doze by the voices of three young girls. They had come to hunt eggs, I heard them say, and right away I wondered if it would take them up in my hay-loft. How they did chatter; I thought the music of their happy voices was about the sweetest I had listened to in many days. I lay still, for the time being, forgetful of my surroundings, just feasting my ears, when suddenly my enjoyment was turned into apprehension; for the dear little girls had taken it into their heads to transfer the scene of their egg-hunting from the lower part of the barn to the hay-loft.
Sure enough, the next minute they came scrambling up on the hay, and finding none of the article of which they were in search, began to romp, tumble, chase each other, roll over and over, and in many other ways disport themselves in the hay over me, until the seed and dust well-nigh filled my ear that was uppermost and found a way into my clothing, while my nostrils were choked so that breathing was rendered most difficult. But that was not the worst of it, for I was suddenly seized with an almost ungovernable desire to sneeze. I trembled at what the consequences might be, were I to give way to this very natural rebellion of my much imposed upon nose. I speak of it now in an attempted vein of humor, but then it was a serious predicament in which I was placed. A real healthy, atmosphere-tearing sneeze might mean my undoing, after having come safely through many dangers to a point where I was beginning to believe that I would outwit my enemies. Once I choked back a spasm that caused my ears to snap and my eyes to bulge from their sockets. I could not possibly withstand another attack like that, I felt sure. I was in a desperate situation, when the girls, suddenly becoming weary of their romp, climbed down from the loft and ran laughing from the barn. I’ll warrant they hadn’t gone twenty paces, when I emitted a tornado of a sneeze that shook me from top to toe. What it would have done for me I fully realized upon hearing the stamping of hoofs among the startled cows below me. For a few minutes I lay quaking with dread, but after a little I was glad that I and the dumb brutes underneath were the only witnesses as to that sneeze. After the possibility of danger was passed, I couldn’t feel otherwise than gratified over the action of nature, which had relieved me of the awful tickling in my nostrils, and left in its stead the delicious sensation of clear respiration.