when she's gone altogether. I do'
know why't is."

"I rec'lect once," Mrs. Thacher resumed, "when Ad'line was a baby and
John was just turned four year old, their father had gone down river
in the packet, and I was expectin' on him home at supper time, but he
didn't come; 't was late in the fall, and a black night as I ever see.
Ad'line was taken with something like croup, and I had an end o'
candle in the candlestick that I lighted, and 't wa'n't long afore it
was burnt down, and I went down cellar to the box where I kep' 'em,
and if you will believe it, the rats had got to it, and there wasn't a
week o' one left. I was near out anyway. We didn't have this
cook-stove then, and I cal'lated I could make up a good lively blaze,
so I come up full o' scold as I could be, and then I found I'd burnt
up all my dry wood. You see, I thought certain he'd be home and I was
tendin' to the child'n, but I started to go out o' the door and found
it had come on to rain hard, and I said to myself I wouldn't go out to
the woodpile and get my clothes all damp, 'count o' Ad'line, and the
candle end would last a spell longer, and he'd be home by that time. I
hadn't a least o' suspicion but what he was dallying round up to the
Corners, 'long o' the rest o' the men, bein' 't was Saturday night,
and I was some put out about it, for he knew the baby was sick, and I
hadn't nobody with me. I set down and waited, but he never come, and
it rained hard as I ever see it, and I left his supper standin' right
in the floor, and then I begun to be distressed for fear somethin' had
happened to Dan'l, and I set to work and cried, and the candle end
give a flare and went out, and by 'n' by the fire begun to get low and
I took the child'n and went to bed to keep warm; 't was an awful cold
night, considerin' 't was such a heavy rain, and there I laid awake
and thought I heard things steppin' about the room, and it seemed to
me as if 't was a week long before mornin' come, and as if I'd got to
be an old woman. I did go through with everything that night. 'T was
that time Dan'l broke his leg, you know; they was takin' a deck load
of oak knees down by the packet, and one on 'em rolled down from the
top of the pile and struck him just below the knee. He was poling, for
there wan't a breath o' wind, and he always felt certain there was
somethin' mysterious about it. He'd had a good deal worse knocks than
that seemed to be, as only left a black and blue spot, and