The Holbrook news., 1911-08-11
WORST OF ALL HOURS
IT BEGINS WHEN ONE WAKES UP
 AT ? IN THE MORNING.
Everyone Else Is Asleep, You Are Helpless and Isolated and the House Is Full of Strange
 Noises.

Did you ever wake up at some un-
 known hour and listen for the clock to
 strike and experience a great sense of
 relief that it counted four instead of
 two? You knew then that things
 would be stirring before long; that the
 milk wagons would soon be going past,
 and that you weren't to remain the only person awake west of New York
 It Is insisted that the first three
 hours of sleep are the soundest of all. However that may be, 1t certainly is
 fact that If you get to sleep at all you rarely awaken before two o'clock. Besides, the early part of the night isn't particularly lonesome. You know that people are getting home from the theaters and that up to say, one o'clock, the town is just settling down to sleep. But when some noise, or what you ate at dinner, arouses you to hear the clock strike two, you are overwhelmed by the feeling of your own helplessness and isolation. No body else for miles around; you feel quite sure, can be awake for any good purpose.
 The house Is full of curious creaks and groans. What is that strange noise in the next room? It must be the window shade Tapping in the wind. Of course, 1t must be. .. Still, it might be somebody moving ever so stealthily. You lie perfectly quiet and listen, strain Ing your eardrums for some peculiarity of the sound that will settle it's char acter.
 Yes, it is the window shade. But now comes a crash from the kitchen a distinct crash; no trick of the i'm agination. Did you lock the kitchen window before you went to bed? You think you did, but a haunting doubt comes over you. Maybe it was the cat. But wasn't the cat put down cellar? Possibly the cellar door wasn't quite latched. The cat might have got back into the kitchen.
 Now one of the children sneezes- sneezes repeatedly. He didn't seem to have any cold when he went to bed. Perhaps he has kicked the clothes off You would better go see. No, he is covered up. Why should he have sneezed? Can he be coming down with pneumonia, or scarlet fever, or something? A good many serious dis eases begin with bad cold. Perhaps he is feverish. You feel his hands They do feel hot-or are you own cold? You give it up and go back to bed. Could you get the doctor if you needed him? You strain to listen for more sneezes or for the restlessness that betrays fever. No. there isn't anything.
 Once more the clock strikes-one, two. three. Only three. If it were only four morning would be near You are worn to a frazzle by this time. | You know you never can get to sleep l again, and the worst of it is that you don't dare thrash around, as you would | like to for fear you might waken your wife. Thank goodness. she has slept through all these terrors. You start to counting, get to AT. and then forget to go on in the strain of listen ing for more noises. You are on the verge of despair. Can 1t be that the clock is striking again? Yes, seven, and it's morning. You had dozed off, after all.
 Isn't morning great? And isn't the hour from two to three the dismalest of all the 24?-Kansas City Times.