"No, no!" she screamed. "No, no! I won't sing to a bird! I won't! I'll go to Sarah's first!"
A stillness that frightened her followed. Something pattered beside her, and she looked apprehensively at the sky through a rift in the branches.
"Don't say it's rain!" she whispered, nervously. "I'm fearful scairt o' thunder-storms!"
The sky was rapidly clouding over, and a growl of thunder answered her. She started up, but fell helplessly back.
"O Lord, I can't move! I can't move a step! I'm too heavy!" she cried in terror. The storm came on fast; the branches shook under a sudden wind, and the birds grew still. She was too weak to realise fully her situation, but what consciousness she owned was swallowed up in terror. A sudden flash, and she shrank together with a moan.
"I'm out o' my head—I'm not really here—I'm in the house—I wouldn't be here f'r anything!" she whispered. A heavy clap, and she screamed with fear. The time when she left the house was far away and misty in her mind. She could not remember coming. The drops struck her in quick succession and the muttering grew more frequent, the flashes brighter. Sick with fright, she cowered under the tree. Her childhood unfolded before her, her girlhood; her poor pinched life assumed a glory and fulness it had never had. So warm, so sheltered, so contented it seemed to her.
A great harsh clap shook the little wood and a vivid glare wrapped her about. With a wail she fell back against the tree-trunk. Her mind was clear again, she recalled everything. She had been led out here to die. She was summoned forth to meet the judgment of God. Heretic, infidel, blasphemer that she was, she was to go before Him that day!
Her clothes were soaked with rain, she shivered with cold, she was too weak to take a step, but she staggered to her knees and folded her hands. The tree swayed above her, the wood was dark as night, the rain to her weak nerves was deafening; the powers of darkness raged about her. She tried to pray for forgiveness, for peace at the last, but in her mind, all too clear, was the remembrance of her life for two weeks past. She set her teeth to keep them from chattering so, and shivering at each clap and gasping at each flash, she prayed:
"O Lord, if you are sendin' this storm to punish me, I can't help it. I've believed in you all my life, and I'm sixty-two and I'm going to die in a thunder-storm. If it'll save me to believe in the Holy Ghost, then I'll have to be damned eternally as the Widder Sheldon says you'll do, for I can't, I can't, I can't! I' been a believer all my life, and I' only been this way two weeks, and if that counts against all the rest, I'll just haf' to go to hell, that's all. Feelin' as I do, you can't expect me to change for a thunder-storm, Lord, scairt as I be. It don't make no difference that I'm scairt, I feel just the same. I' been a sinful woman, an' I pray to be forgiven, but I can't change, Lord, I can't, an' you wouldn't respect me if I was ter. Amen."
A glare that seemed to brighten the wood for minutes and a terrific burst of thunder answered her. With a little gasp she fell backward and lay unconscious. The storm raged about her, but she knew nothing of it. A little withered old woman, she lay in a heap in the lap of all the elements, and they beat upon her like a leaf.