THE END OF THE WORLD.
Dotty shuddered. It seemed so unearthly and horrible to be awake at
night; to see a lamp burning, and Katie looking so very white. It was
the strawberries which had made her ill, as Miss Polly confessed. When
that good but ignorant woman had gone down stairs, Dotty had much ado to
keep from screaming outright.
"I thought somebody would die," said she to herself; "but I didn't
s'pose it would be Katie. O, Katie, Katie Clifford! you're the
cunningist child. We can't have you die!"
"Somebody leave me alone," moaned Katie; "and 'twas you'n the Polly
woman. I don't love anybody in this world!"
"Darling! I didn't mean to," said Dotty, "now honest. Polly said, 'O,
dear! she was going to die'; but I might have known she wouldn't. She
told a wrong story--I mean she made a mistake."
"You was naughty," said Katie, "velly naughty; but you didn't mean to."
"No, Katie; 'twas Polly that was naughty."
"The krilt got off o' me," said Katie, picking at the tufted coverlet;
"and then I was sick."
"Miss Polly said it was the strawberries, darling; and the cream poured
over them so thick."
"And getting into the watering-trough," added Dotty to herself,
uneasily.
"Yes," sighed Katie: "'twas the stawbollies. Did _I_ ask for the
stawbollies? No, but the Polly woman gave 'em to me. Didn't want 'em; I
wanted to be well."
After two weary hours, which seemed as long as days almost, poor little
Katie was easier, and fell asleep. Dotty, who had taken several naps in
her chair, would now have gone to bed again; but Miss Polly was dressed,
and said she could not close her eyes if she tried; she meant to go down
stairs to her knitting. Dotty was afraid to stay alone. She was always a
little timid, and to-night her nerves had been considerably tried. The
lamp cast frightful shadows, and the newly-risen moon shone through the
white curtains with ghostly light. She could "preach" to Jennie Vance
about God's "holding the whole world in his arms;" but she could not
always remember it herself. She put on a white wrapper of Susy's, and,
looking like a wimpled nun, followed Polly down stairs. If she thought
of wee Katie at all, she thought there were good angels in the room to
guard her; but she could not trust _herself_ with them; she would rather
keep close to Polly.
"I think," whispered Polly, unlocking the back door and looking out at
the sky, "it must be very near morning; but the clocks have both run
down, and I can only guess at the time by my feelings."
Then Polly made a brisk fire in the stove, and set the tea-kettle to
humming.
"Now I will get the milk-pail," said she, "and you may put on the
tea-pot. I am faint for want of something to drink."
It was one of Polly's peculiarities that she always talked to children
as if they had as much judgment as grown people. Dotty did not know
where to look for any tea-pot except the very best one, which stood on
a shelf in the china closet; that she brought and set on the stove,
empty.
"Let me go too, let me go too!" cried she, as Polly was walking out with
the milk-pails.
The daisies, with "their little lamps of dew," seemed still asleep, and
so did all the "red-mouthed flowers" in the garden. The cows looked up
with languid surprise at sight of their visitors, but offered no
objections to being milked. Dotty gave one hasty peep at the white hen
sitting on the venerable duck's eggs; but the hen seemed offended. Dotty
ran away, and took a survey of the "green gloom" of the trees, in the
midst of which was suspended the swing, looking now as melancholy as a
gallows.
"O, what a dreadful night this is!" thought the child, standing bolt
upright, lest she should fall asleep. "Where's the sun? He hasn't taken
off his red silk night cap. He hasn't got back from China yet. Only
think,--if he shouldn't come back at all! I heard somebody say, the
other day, the world was coming to an end. Miss Polly," said she, aloud,
re-entering the barn, "isn't this the longest night you ever saw in all
the days of your life?"
"Yes, it has been considerable long, I am free to confess," replied
Polly, who thought she had had a very hard time keeping house, as was
indeed the truth.
"Do you s'pose, Miss Polly, that some morning the sun won't rise any
more?"
"O, yes," replied Miss Polly, who was always ready with a hymn:--
"'God reigns above,--he reigns alone;
Systems burn out, and leave His throne.'
"Why, yes, dear; the world will certainly come to an end one of these
days; and _then_ the sun won't rise, of course; there won't be any
sun."
And Miss Polly began to hum one of her sorrowful tunes, beating time
with the two streams of milk which dripped mournfully into the pail.
"She is afraid this is the end of the world," thought Dotty, with a
throbbing heart, and a stifling sensation at the throat; "she don't
believe the sun is ever going to rise any more."
The music suddenly ceased.
"These are very poor cows," said Polly, in a reflective tone; "or else
they don't give down their milk. I understood you to say, Dotty, that
Ruth milked very early."
"If everything's coming to an end, it's no wonder the cows act so," said
Dotty, to herself, but she dared not say it aloud.
They went into the house, the trail of Susy's long wrapper following
after little Dotty Dimple like the closing feet in one of Polly's
long-metre verses. Still the moon shone with the same white, ghostly
light, and the sun continued to keep away.
"This beats all," said Polly, mournfully; as she washed her hands,
strained the milk, and set the pans away. "If I judged by my feelings, I
should say it must be six o'clock, or very near it. At any rate, I'm
going to have a cup of tea. What's this smell?"
On the stove stood a pool of something which looked like liquid silver,
and proved to be the remains of the best tea-pot. At any other time
Dotty would have felt very sorry; but now the accident seemed a mere
trifle, when compared with the staying away of the sun. Who could tell
"if ever morn should rise?"
Even Miss Polly, with her constitutional gloom, was not just now so
miserable as Dotty, and never dreamed that it was anything but
sleepiness which made the little girl so sober. Dotty was not a child
who could tell all the thoughts which troubled her youthful brain.
"Well, well," said Polly, giving another inquiring glance at the sky;
"not a streak of daylight yet! I'll tell you what it is, Dotty; we might
as well go to bed."
But hark! As she spoke there was a loud report as of a pistol. It seemed
to come from the cellar.
Miss Polly clapped both hands to her ears. Dotty shrieked, and hid her
face in her lap, and shrieked again.
"It has come! It has come!" cried she,--meaning the end of the
world,--and stopped her ears.
"What, what, what!" whispered Polly, in sore affright, walking back and
forth, and taking snuff as she went. It was certainly startling to hear
a pistol go off so unexpectedly, at that solemn hour, under one's very
roof. Polly naturally thought first of housebreakers. She had barred and
double-barred every door and window; but now she remembered with
dreadful remorse she had not fastened the outside cellar door. No doubt
it had been left open, and burglars had got into the cellar. O, what a
responsibility had been put upon her! and why hadn't somebody
particularly warned her to attend to that door? Perhaps the burglars
were stealing pork. But they would not have fired a pistol at the
barrel--would they? O, no; they were trying to blow up the house!
Polly took three pinches of snuff, one after the other, as fast as she
could, slipped off her shoes, went to the kitchen window, and peeped
through the blinds. Not much to be seen but moonlight, and the deep
shadows of the ragged trees.
Another pistol-shot; then another. The sound came from that part of the
cellar called the soap-room, directly under Polly's feet.
She did not wait for further warning. Every moment was precious. She
meant to save what lives she could, for Polly was strictly
conscientious. She took the nearly frantic Dotty into the china closet,
dragging her like a sack of meal, and turned the key.
"Stay there, child, if you know when you're well off," whispered she
through the keyhole. "The house is blowing up. I'm going to call Abner."
In her consternation Polly had not reflected that Dotty was as likely
to be blown up in the closet as anywhere else. The unfortunate little
girl screamed and struggled in her prison in vain. There was no way of
escape. Night of horrors! As far as she was concerned, there were two
ends to the world, and they were coming right together. Her agony is not
to be described.
Abner came very soon; but it seemed an age. Being a brave man who had
served three months in the army, he had the courage to walk down cellar
and face the enemy.
He found nothing worse, however, than a few bottles of beer which had
blown off their own heads. He brought them up in his arms.
"Here," said he, "are your burglars, with their throats cut from ear to
ear."
"Well, if I ever had such a fright in all the days of my life!" cried
Polly, staring at the bottles, and catching her breath.
Abner poured some of the beer into a goblet, and drank to the health of
Miss Dimple, who climbed upon his knee, and felt as if the world had
suddenly stopped coming to an end; and she was greatly relieved.
"But who fired the guns?" said she, not understanding yet what it all
meant.
"It was only the beer coming out to get the air," said Abner, taking
another glass. "You couldn't expect beer with the spirit of a hop in it
to stay bottled up with a stopper in!"
"I never had such queer feelings," exclaimed Polly, rolling up her eyes;
"and now it's all over, I feel as if I was going to faint away."
"I wouldn't advise you to," said Abner, coolly. "The enemy is routed,
and victory is ours. Drink a little beer, Polly; it will revive your
spirits. But what is the object, may I ask, of your prowling about the
house with this poor little girl at this hour of night?"
"Why, what time is it? I thought by my feelings it must have been
daybreak long enough ago."
It was Abner's private opinion that Polly would do well to think less of
her "feelings" now and always; but he only said, consulting his watch,--
"It's just one o'clock, ladies; time for respectable people to be in
bed."
Polly said she had never felt such surprise before in her life. She was
afraid she should be sick; for sitting up in the night was always too
much for her.
Dotty said her prayers over again, and fell into a sleep "sweeter than a
nest of nightingales." And with her last waking thought she thanked God
the round red sun was not worn out yet, and the world had not come to an
end.