Mrs. Lyman said nothing, but lay quite still, looking out of the window upon the white fields and the bare trees, till the baby began to cry, and Siller came to take it away.
"Bless its little heart," said the nurse, holding it against her tear-wet cheek; "it's born into this world in a poor time, so it is. No wonder it feels bad. Open its eyes and look around. See, Pinky Posy, this is a free country now, and has been for over twenty years; but it's my private opinion it won't stay so long, for the Father of it is dead and gone! O, Mrs. Lyman, what awful times there'll be before this child grows up!"
"Don't borrow trouble, Priscilla. The world won't stop because one man is dead. It is God's world, and it moves."
"But, Mrs. Lyman, do you think the United States is going to hold together without General Washington?"
"Yes, to be sure I do; and my baby will find it a great deal better place to live in than ever you or I have done; now you mark my words, Priscilla."
All the people of Perseverance considered Mrs. Lyman a very wise woman, and when she said, "Now you mark my words," it was as good as Elder Lovejoy's amen at the end of a sermon. Priscilla wiped her eyes and looked consoled. After what Mrs. Lyman had said, she felt perfectly easy about the United States.
"Well, baby," said she, "who knows but you'll see great times, after all, in your day and generation?"
And upon that the baby went to sleep quite peacefully, though without ever dreaming of any "great times."
Ah, if Siller could only have guessed what wonderful things that baby was really going to see "in her day and generation!" The good woman had never heard of a railroad car, or a telegraph wire, or a gaslight. How she would have screamed with astonishment if any one had told her that Miss Patience would some time go whizzing through the country without horses, and with nothing to draw the carriage but a puff of smoke! Or that Miss Patience would warm her feet at a hole in the floor (for Siller had no idea of our furnaces). Or that Miss Patience's grandchildren would write letters to her with lightning (for a telegraph is almost the same thing as that).
But, no; Siller was only thinking about some cracker toast and a cup of tea, and wondering if it was time to set the heel in her stocking. And before she had counted off the stitches, the children came home from school, and she had more than she could do to keep the house still.