"And getting into the watering-trough," added Dotty to herself, uneasily.
"Yes," sighed Katie: "'twas the stawbollies. Did I ask for the stawbollies? No, but the Polly woman gave 'em to me. Didn't want 'em; I wanted to be well."
After two weary hours, which seemed as long as days almost, poor little Katie was easier, and fell asleep. Dotty, who had taken several naps in her chair, would now have gone to bed again; but Miss Polly was dressed, and said she could not close her eyes if she tried; she meant to go down stairs to her knitting. Dotty was afraid to stay alone. She was always a little timid, and to-night her nerves had been considerably tried. The lamp cast frightful shadows, and the newly-risen moon shone through the white curtains with ghostly light. She could "preach" to Jennie Vance about God's "holding the whole world in his arms;" but she could not always remember it herself. She put on a white wrapper of Susy's, and, looking like a wimpled nun, followed Polly down stairs. If she thought of wee Katie at all, she thought there were good angels in the room to guard her; but she could not trust herself with them; she would rather keep close to Polly.
"I think," whispered Polly, unlocking the back door and looking out at the sky, "it must be very near morning; but the clocks have both run down, and I can only guess at the time by my feelings."
Then Polly made a brisk fire in the stove, and set the tea-kettle to humming.
"Now I will get the milk-pail," said she, "and you may put on the tea-pot. I am faint for want of something to drink."
It was one of Polly's peculiarities that she always talked to children as if they had as much judgment as grown people. Dotty did not know where to look for any tea-pot except the very best one, which stood on a shelf in the china closet; that she brought and set on the stove, empty.
"Let me go too, let me go too!" cried she, as Polly was walking out with the milk-pails.
The daisies, with "their little lamps of dew," seemed still asleep, and so did all the "red-mouthed flowers" in the garden. The cows looked up with languid surprise at sight of their visitors, but offered no objections to being milked. Dotty gave one hasty peep at the white hen sitting on the venerable duck's eggs; but the hen seemed offended. Dotty ran away, and took a survey of the "green gloom" of the trees, in the midst of which was suspended the swing, looking now as melancholy as a gallows.
"O, what a dreadful night this is!" thought the child, standing bolt upright, lest she should fall asleep. "Where's the sun? He hasn't taken off his red silk night cap. He hasn't got back from China yet. Only think,—if he shouldn't come back at all! I heard somebody say, the other day, the world was coming to an end. Miss Polly," said she, aloud, re-entering the barn, "isn't this the longest night you ever saw in all the days of your life?"