“There, there, Louizy,” interposed Huldy, “it ain’t no sort of use to make a fuss. What the S’lectmen say they say, and—”
She was interrupted by a cry without, and in an instant the door was flung open by old Simeon, who with wildly waving arms and weirdly working face cried out:—
“F’ th’ Lord’s sake! Come quicker ’n scat! Old Tim’s in a fit!”
II
The account old Simeon and Grandsire Welsh gave of Tim’s seizure was that he had been sitting outside the kitchen window, where they all were listening with interest to the conversation within, when suddenly he had thrown up his arms, crying out that he could not do it, and had fallen in a fit. No one at the poor-farm could know that Tim had reached the crisis of a severe mental struggle which had been going on for days. He had for days listened to the bitter words of Mrs. Trafton, and had sympathized with her grief over her child; and all the time he listened he had been secretly conscious that the little hoard he had gathered for his burying would save Nellie from the Betts woman, a shrew notorious all over the county for her cruelty. He remembered that Bill Trafton had saved him from drowning; that Mrs. Betts had the credit of having caused the death of her last bound child; and against this he set the terror of rising at the Resurrection from the unblessed precincts of the Dartbank Potter’s Field. The mental conflict had been too much for him, and the appeal of Mrs. Trafton to the Overseer had broken old Tim down.
Tim was got to bed, and in time recovered his senses, although he was very weak. Mrs. Trafton volunteered to watch with him that night, and so it came about that at midnight she sat in the bare chamber where old Tim lay. As the hours wore on Tim seemed much brighter, and asked her to talk to him to while away the time. The only subject in her mind was her child.
“If Nellie was with my folks,” she said, “I’d try to stand being away from her; but it’s just killing me to have that Betts woman starve her and beat her the way she’s done with the others. She’d kill Nellie.”
Tim moved uneasily in bed.
“But ye’d be after seein’ the child here,” he muttered feebly.
“I’d see her no more’n if she was with my folks,” returned Louizy bitterly; “but I’d know how she was suffering.”