They looked at each other in wonderment. Then the child’s feverish eyes sparkled.
“O Dil, I know he’d help us pay it back, for mammy was so cross to the lady he sent that she won’t come no more. An’ ’twouldn’t been no use to give mammy the money. O Dil, we’ve had ten whole dollars. Wasn’t it lovely? An’ I wisht the time would spin round an’ round, faster’n ever. I get so tired waitin’. Seems sometimes ’s if I jes’ couldn’t draw another breath.”
“Oh, you must! you must!” cried Dil in affright. “For when people stop breathin’, they die.”
“An’ I wanter live, so’s we can get started for heaven. I’ll be better when it’s all nice an’ warm out o’ doors, an’ sunshiny. I’d jes’ like to live in sunshine. You see, when the babies cry, it makes me feel all roughened up like. An’ I’m that feared o’ mammy when she an’ Owny hev scrimmiges. There’s a lump comes in my throat ’n’ chokes me. But I’m gonter live. Don’t you know how las’ winter I was so poor an’ measlin’? An’ I crawled out in the spring. Owny was readin’ in his lesson ’bout some things doin’ that way;” and Bess gave a pitiful ghost of a laugh.
“Won’t you lay me down?” she asked presently. “My poor back’s so tired.”
“You must eat some broth first.”
She did not want it, and the effort she made to please Dil was heroic.
She often asked to be laid down now. When the babies cried, it seemed as if knives were being thrust into her head. She had so many queer fancies, but she tried not to tell the bad ones to Dil. One moment she seemed out of doors, with the cold rasping her skin everywhere, going down her back like a stream of ice-water. Then she was scorched with heat, her skin crisping up and cracking. When she was pillowed up, it seemed as if she would fall to pieces; when she was laid down, the poor bones ached.
And in that land of “pure delight” there was no pain, no sickness, no chilling winds! And perhaps the babies didn’t cry,—maybe there were no babies. They mightn’t be big enough to go, and they would be scared at the giants.
Monday night began badly. A neighbor came in and made a complaint about Owen, and threatened to have him arrested. He had broken a pane of glass and kicked her dog. Mrs. Quinn was tired with a big wash; and this made her furious, though she went at the woman in no gentle terms.