INVITATION TO A FOX HUNT
"I don't know that I can go. Let's talk it over with my brother John."
When John heard us he said: "I guess I can fix things so that you can get off. Pitch in, work hard, and do some of the stints that father set you for to-morrow, and I will look after your chores."
By the time mother came to the door and blew the horn for supper, we had done a great deal of work.
After supper I lit a big pine knot and placed it in the side of the fireplace, so that the smoke from it would go up the chimney. It threw a pleasant light out into the room. Father was at work on an ox-bow. John had a rake into which he was setting some new teeth, and I sat on a stool with a wooden shovel between my legs, shelling corn; rasping the ears on the iron edge of the shovel, so that the kernels fell into a big basket in front of me.
My little brother David was sitting on a bench in the side of the great fireplace, reading that terrible poem by the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, called the "Day of Doom," which tells all about the day of judgment,—how the sinners are doomed to burn eternally in brimstone; and the saints are represented as seated comfortably in their armchairs in heaven, looking down into the sulphurous pit.
I used to wonder how Mr. Wigglesworth got so thorough a knowledge of these two places and of judgment day, and doubts crept into my mind as to the accuracy of his description. When I thought of Bishop Hancock seated in one of those armchairs, I knew that his soul, at least, would be full of pity and sorrow for the poor sufferers below, and I felt that the saints ought to be a good deal like him.
I did not envy David his book. It seemed to me that every now and then I could see his hair rise up and his eyes bulge out with terror.
Mother stood by the woollen wheel, spinning, and my little sister Ruhama sat near her, knitting.