And he wus jest a askin' me this,—and it beats all, how many times he had tackled me on this very subject,—when Whitfield drove up in a great hurry. Little Samantha Joe had been taken sick, very sick, and extremely sudden.
Scarlet-fever was round, and she and the boy had both been exposed. I was all excitement and agitation; and I hurried off without changin' my dress, or any thing. But I told Josiah to put the boy to bed about nine.
Wall, there was a uncommon sunset that night. The west was all aflame with light. And as we rode on towards Jonesville right towards it,—though very anxious about the babe,—I drawed Whitfield's attention to it.
The hull of the west did look, for all the world, like a great, shinin' white gate, open, and inside all full of radience, rose, and yellow, and gold light, a streamin' out, and changin', and glowin', movin' about, as clouds will.
It seemed sometimes, as if you could almost see a white, shadowy figure, inside the gate, a lookin' out, and watchin' with her arms reached out; and then it would all melt into the light again, as clouds will.
It wus the beautifulest sunset I had seen, that year, by far. And we s'pose, from what we could learn afterwards, that the boy, too, was attracted by that wonderful glory in the west, and strolled out to the orchard to look at it. It wus a favorite place with him, anyway. And there wus a certain tree that he loved to lay under. A sick-no-further apple. It wus the very tree I found him under that day in the spring, a lookin' up into the sky, a watchin' for the City to come down from heaven. You could see a good ways from there off into the west, and out over the lake. And the sunset must have looked beautiful from there, anyway.
Wall, my poor companion Josiah wus all rousted up in his mind about the babe, and he never thought of the boy till it was half-past nine; and then he hurried off to find him, skairt, but s'posen he was up on his bed with his clothes on, or asleep on the lounges, or carpets, or somewhere.
