one evening, as katherine and her relatives sat on the very landa of their plantation -- veranda of their plantation home, someone whom she described as runaway negro, darted past them, and katherine's brothers left for the pursuit, but the desperate fumetive made good his escape. the stones and their neighbors began to worry that they were, in her words, living on a landmine. seeking refuge from these anxieties, catherine turned, she said to the fictional works of a then popular 19th century southern author, edgar allen poe oe. but she decided she was going avoid his most fearsome pieces, as she puts it. and perhaps -- we don't know -- but perhaps she chose the fall of the house of usher. well. it's not a particularly grisly story. it's not filled as are some other of the poe stories with grim super narl horrors which might have made this short story seem a relatively safe distraction from the unsettling events around her. that tv begins, you may recall -- poes narrator is paying a visit to a friend, a man named roderick usher, who is the heir of an old wealthy and vennellable family and