Everybody’s been setting glass. Counting the house and the school-house,
and the panes set over the barn door, and four squares in the hen-house,
we had to set four hundred and twenty-three squares. The express-man has
brought loads and loads. All the great boys helped set. We slept one
night with bedquilts and rugs hung up to the windows. The master tried
to shut his blind in the storm, but the hail drove him in, and he
couldn’t even shut down his window again. A rich man has given to the
Two Betseys better windows than they had before. Now I will tell about
my being in that closet.
When it began to grow stiller, I took my hands down from my ears, and
one hand when it came down touched something soft. Quite soft and warm.
I jumped off from it in a hurry. Then I heard a kind of bleating noise,
and a little faint “ba’a ba’a.” But now comes the very strangest part.
Farther back in the closet I heard somebody move, somebody step. I was
scared, and gave the door a push, to let the light in. Now who do you
think was there? Aunt Phebe must stop reading and let you guess. But
maybe you’re reading yourself. Then stop and guess. ’T wasn’t a ghost.
’T wasn’t a man. ’T wasn’t a woman. ’T was Tom Cush! and Rosy’s lamb!
Says he, “William Henry!” Says I, “Tom!” Then we walked out into the
room, and O, what a sight! Says I, “I thought ’t was going to be the end
of the old house.”
Says Tom, “I thought ’t was going to be the end of the world.”
In the corners the hailstones were heaped up in great banks. You might
have shovelled up barrels full. Most of them were the size of bird’s
eggs. But some were bigger. Then we looked out doors. The ground was all
white, and drifts in every cornering place, and the leaves stripped off
the trees. Then we looked at one another, and he was just as pale as
anything. He leaned against the wall, and I guessed he was crying. To
see such a great boy crying seemed most as bad as the hailstorm. Maybe
he didn’t cry. When he turned his head round again, says he: “Billy, I’m
sick, and what shall I do?”
“Go home,” says I.
“No,” says he, “I won’t go home. And if you let ’em know, I’ll--” And
then he picked up Gapper’s whip,--“I’ll flog you.”
“Flog away,” says I; “maybe I shall, and maybe I sha’ n’t.”
He dropped the whip down, and says he, “Billy, I sha’ n’t ever touch
you. But they mustn’t know till I’m gone to sea.”