“Listen, little Dan'l,” he said, and his voice sounded in his own ears like a small voice of a soul thousands of miles away. “You take the—umbrella, and—you take the fan, and you go real slow, so you don't get overhet, and you tell Mis' Dean, and—”
Then old Daniel's tremendous nerve, that he had summoned for the sake of love, failed him, and he sank back. He was quite unconscious—his face, staring blindly up at the terrible sky between the trees, was to little Dan'l like the face of a stranger. She gave one cry, more like the yelp of a trodden animal than a child's voice. Then she took the open umbrella and sped away. The umbrella bobbed wildly—nothing could be seen of poor little Dan'l but her small, speeding feet. She wailed loudly all the way.
She was half-way home when, plodding along in a cloud of brown dust, a horse appeared in the road. The horse wore a straw bonnet and advanced very slowly. He drew a buggy, and in the buggy were Dr. Trumbull and Johnny, his son. He had called at Daniel's to see the little girl, and, on being told that they had gone to walk, had said something under his breath and turned his horse's head down the road.
“When we meet them, you must get out, Johnny,” he said, “and I will take in that poor old man and that baby. I wish I could put common sense in every bottle of medicine. A day like this!”
Dr. Trumbull exclaimed when he saw the great bobbing black umbrella and heard the wails. The straw-bonneted horse stopped abruptly. Dr. Trumbull leaned out of the buggy. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Uncle Dan'l is gone,” shrieked the child.
“Gone where? What do you mean?”
“He—tumbled right down, and then he was-somebody else. He ain't there.”
“Where is 'there'? Speak up quick!”
“The brook—Uncle Dan'l went away at the brook.”