d upon my hands, thinking some,
praying a little, and murmuring a great deal. I can shut my eyes now,
and see myself sitting there so miserable, and the little boys playing
about, so hushed and quiet. I can see the little green patch of
vegetables, and the cornfield, and the roof of Healy's house beyond, and
the blue smoke rising up so straight and still, and on the other side
the prairie, and the gleam of the lake-water far away. I never hear the
crickets on a summer afternoon but I think of that day, so bright and
warm and still. Oh, how long it seemed to me!

"The children grew tired, and I put them to bed when I could keep them
up no longer; and then I went and waited on the doorstep till I grew
chilly and sick in the dew; and then I went in. I did not mean to go to
sleep, though I sat down on the floor and laid my head on the pillow of
my boys' low bed; but I was tired with the week's work, and more tired
with the day's waiting, and I did drop off. I could not have slept very
long. I woke in a fright from a dream I had, and the room was filled
with smoke; and when I made my way to the door and opened it the flames
burst out, and I saw my husband lying on the bed. He had come in,
though I had not heard him. God alone knows how the fire happened. I
don't know, and Stephen don't know, to this day.

"I tried my best to wake him; but I could not. What with liquor, and
what with the smoke, he was stupefied. I dragged him out and dashed
water on him, and then went back for my boys. I don't know what
happened then. I have a dream, sometimes, of holding a little body, and
being held back when the blazing roof fell in; and then, they say, I
went mad.

"I don't know how long the time was after that before I saw my husband.
I have a remembrance of long nights, troubled by dreams of fire and the
crying out of little children; and then of seeing kind faces about me,
and of long, quiet days; and then they took me to my husband. He was
ill, and cried out for me in his fever; and they took me to him, fearing
for us both.

"He did not know me at first. I had been a young woman when we lived
together on the prairie; but when I went back to him my hair was as
white as it is to-day. He was changed too--oh, how changed and broken!
He needed me, and I stayed and nursed him till he got well. I was weak
in mind, and couldn't remember everything that had happened for a while;
but I grew stronger, and it all came back;