But ever since that night in that schoolhouse, if I do have a nightmare, it takes the shape of that roll being called.

Every word was like a spade grating and gritting in damp gravel when a grave is dug.

It sounded so to me.
"Samuel Palmour, how do you vote ?" that chairman would say.
Samuel Palmour, or whoever it was, would hist himself to his feet, and he would say something like this: "Death." He wouldn't say it joyous.

He wouldn't say it mad.

He would be pale when he said it, mebby--and mebby trembling.