"I rec'lect once," Mrs. Thacher resumed, "when Ad'line was a baby and
John was just turned four year old, their father had gone down river
in the packet, and I was expectin' on him home at supper time, but he
didn't come; 't was late in the fall, and a black night as I ever see.
Ad'line was taken with something like croup, and I had an end o'
candle in the candlestick that I lighted, and 't wa'n't long afore it
was burnt down, and I went down cellar to the box where I kep' 'em,
and if you will believe it, the rats had got to it, and there wasn't a
week o' one left. I was near out anyway. We didn't have this
cook-stove then, and I cal'lated I could make up a good lively blaze,
so I come up full o' scold as I could be, and then I found I'd burnt
up all my dry wood. You see, I thought certain he'd be home and I was
tendin' to the child'n, but I started to go out o' the door and found
it had come on to rain hard, and I said to myself I wouldn't go out to
the woodpile and get my clothes all damp, 'count o' Ad'line, and the
candle end would last a spell longer, and he'd be home by that time. I
hadn't a least o' suspicion but what he was dallying round up to the
Corners, 'long o' the rest o' the men, bein' 't was Saturday night,
and I was some put out about it, for he knew the baby was sick, and I
hadn't nobody with me. I set down and waited, but he never come, and
it rained hard as I ever see it, and I left his supper standin' right
in the floor, and then I begun to be distressed for fear somethin' had
happened to Dan'l, and I set to work and cried, and the candle end
give a flare and went out, and by 'n' by the fire begun to get low and
I took the child'n and went to bed to keep warm; 't was an awful cold
night, considerin' 't was such a heavy rain, and there I laid awake
and thought I heard things steppin' about the room, and it seemed to
me as if 't was a week long before mornin' come, and as if I'd got to
be an old woman. I did go through with everything that night. 'T was
that time Dan'l broke his leg, you know; they was takin' a deck load