"There a'n't nobody in the world, Anny, but what has troubles. I didn't calculate to tell you about Major's; but sence you lay her lively ways to luck, may-be you'd better know 'em. She's been engaged this six months to Reuben Potter, and he's goin' off in a slow consumption; he won't never live to marry her, and she knows it."
"And she come away to see me, mother?"
"Yes, she did. I can't say I thought she need to, but Russell wrote you was pinin' for both of us, and I didn't think you could get along without me, but I told her to stay with Reuben, and I'd come on alone. And says she, 'No, mother, you a'n't young and spry enough to go alone so fur, and the Lord made you my mother and Anny my sister before I picked out Reuben for myself. I can't never have any kin but you, and I might have had somebody beside Reuben, though it don't seem likely now; but he's got four sisters to take care of him, and he thinks and I think it's what I ought to do; so I'm goin' with you.' So she come, Anny; and you see how lively she keeps, just because she don't want to dishearten you none. I don't know as you can blame her for kinder hankerin' to get home."
I hadn't nothin' to say; I was beat. So mother she went on:—
"Fact is, Anny, Major's always a-thinkin' about other folks; it comes kind of nateral to her, and then bein' pious helps it. I guess, dear, when you get to thinkin' more about Russell an' the baby, you'll forget some of your troubles. I hope the Lord won't have to give you no harder lesson than lovin', to teach you Major's ways."
So, after that, I couldn't say no more to mother about stayin'; but when they went away, I like to have cried myself sick,—only baby had to be looked after, and I couldn't dodge her.
Bym-by we had letters from home; they got there all safe, and Reuben wa'n't no worse, Major said;—ef't had been me wrote the letter, I should have said he wa'n't no better!—And I fell back into the old lonesome days, for baby slept mostly; and the summer come on extreme hot; and in July, Russell, bein' forced to go to Cumberton on some land business, left me to home with baby and the hired man, calculatin' to be gone three days and two nights.
The first day he was away was dreadful sultry; the sun went down away over the woods in a kind of a red-hot fog, and it seemed as though the stars were dull and coppery at night; even the whip-poor-wills was too hot to sing; nothin' but a doleful screech-owl quavered away, a half a mile off, a good hour, steady. When it got to be mornin', it didn't seem no cooler; there wa'n't a breath of wind, and the locusts in the woods chittered as though they was fryin'. Our hired man was an old Scotchman, by name Simon Grant; and when he'd got his breakfast, he said he'd go down the clearin' and bring up a load of brush for me to burn. So he drove off with the team, and, havin' cleared up the dishes, I put baby to sleep, and took my pail to the barn to milk the cow,—for we kept her in a kind of a home-lot like, a part that had been cleared afore we come, lest she should stray away in the woods, if we turned her loose; she was put in the barn, too, nights, for fear some stray wild-cat or bear might come along and do her a harm. So I let her into the yard, and was jest a-goin' to milk her when she begun to snort and shake, and finally giv' the pail a kick, and set off, full swing, for the fence to the lot. I looked round to see what was a-comin', and there, about a quarter of a mile off, I see the most curus thing I ever see before or since,—a cloud as black as ink in the sky, and hangin' down from it a long spout like, something like an elephant's trunk, and the whole world under it looked to be all beat to dust. Before I could get my eyes off on't, or stir to run, I see it was comin' as fast as a locomotive; I heerd a great roar and rush,—first a hot wind, and then a cold one, and then a crash,—an' 'twas all as dark as death all round, and the roar appeared to be a-passin' off.
I didn't know for quite a spell where I was. I was flat on my face, and when I come to a little, I felt the grass against my cheek, and I smelt the earth; but I couldn't move, no way; I couldn't turn over, nor raise my head more'n two inches, nor draw myself up one. I was comfortable so long as I laid still; but if I went to move, I couldn't. It wasn't no use to wriggle; and when I'd settled that, I jest went to work to figger out where I was and how I got there, and the best I could make out was that the barn-roof had blowed off and lighted right over me, jest so as not to hurt me, but so't I could'nt move.
Well, there I lay. I knew baby was asleep in the trundle-bed, and there wa'n't no fire in the house; but how did I know the house wa'n't blowed down? I thought that as quick as a flash of lightnin'; it kinder struck me; I couldn't even see, so as to be certain! I wasn't naterally fond of children, but somehow one's own is different, and baby was just gettin' big enough to be pretty; and there I lay, feelin' about as bad as I could, but hangin' on to one hope,—that old Simon, seein' the tornado, would come pretty soon to see where we was.