“Sunthin’ dretful has happened!”
“What is it?” says I.
“Do tell us sister Gowdey!” says sister Minkley.
Says she, “You know how cold it is!”
Says I, “I guess I do; Josiah froze one of his ears a comin’ here to-night, as stiff as a chip offen the north pole.”
“And our buttery shelves froze for the first time in years,” says sister Minkley.
FOUND DEAD.
“Well,” says she “Willie Harris, Widder Harris’es Willie, was found froze to death in that big snow drift jest the other side of the canal. You know sense they licenced that new drinkin’ saloon, Willie has got into bad company, and he left there late last night, after he and a hull party of young fellers had been a drinkin’ and carousin’; he couldn’t hardly stand up when he left, and they s’pose he lost his way and fell in the snow; and there he was, jest the other side of his mother’s, half covered up in the snow; some boys that were skatin’ on the canal found him jest at dark. I never see such a house in my life; the Dr. thinks it will kill his mother, you know she has worked so hard to educate him, almost killed herself, and was happy a doin’ it; she loved him so, and was so proud of him; and she has such a loving, dependent nature; such a affectionate tender-hearted little woman; and Willie was all she had. She lays there, lookin’ like a dead woman. I have been there all the evenin’.”
All the while Miss Gowdey was a speakin’, my heart kep’ a sinkin’ lower and lower, further and further down every minute, till I declare for’t, I didn’t know where it would go to, and I didn’t much care. Willie Harris! that handsome, happy boy that had sot on my knee a hundred times with my Thomas Jefferson; played with him, slept with him. That bright pretty boy, with his frank generous face, his laughing blue eyes, and his curly brown hair—his mother’s pride and darling. Oh! what feelin’s I felt. And then all of a sudden, my heart took a new start, and sunk down more’n two inches I’ll bet, at one sinkin’, as a thought gripped holt of me. What if it had been my Thomas Jefferson! And as that thought tackled me, without mistrustin’ what I was a doin’ I turned round in my seat and spoke right out loud to sister Minkley. Says I: