said I. 'In its cradle, of course. I tucked it up well before I came
away, and she won't dare to mistreat it for one while,' I said. 'Go
and get it!' says my sister Rejoice. 'How dared you come home without
it? Go and get it this minute, do you hear?' I stared as if I had seen
a vision. 'Rejoice, what are you thinking of?' I asked. 'Bring that
child here? Why, what should we do with it? I can't take care of it,
nor you either.' My sister turned the color of fire. 'No one else
shall take care of it,' she says, as if she was Bunker Hill Monument
on a pillow. 'Go and get it this minute, Vesta. Don't wait; the Lord
must not be kept waiting. Go, I tell you!' She looked so wild I was
fairly frightened; so I tried to quiet her. I thought her mind was
touched, some way. 'Well, I'll go to-morrow,' says I, soothing her; 'I
couldn't go now, anyhow, Rejoice. Just hear it rain and blow! It came
on just as I stepped inside the door, and it's a regular storm now. Be
quiet,' I said, 'and I'll go up in the morning and see about it.' My
sister sat right up in the bed. 'You'll go now,' she says, 'or I'll go
myself. Now, this living minute! Quick!' I went, sir. The fire in her
eyes would have scorched me if I had looked at it a minute longer. I
thought she was coming out of the bed after me,--she, who had not
stirred for twenty years. I caught up a shawl, threw another over my
shoulders, and ran for the poor-farm. 'T was a perfect tempest, but I
never felt it. Something seemed to drive me, as if it was a whip laid
across my shoulders. I thought it was my sister's eyes, that had never
looked hard at me since she was born; but maybe it was something else
besides. They say there are no miracles in these days, but we don't
know everything yet. I ran in at the farm, before them all, dripping,
looking like a maniac, I don't doubt. I caught up the child out of the
cradle, and wrapped it in the shawl I'd brought, and ran off again
before they'd got their eyes shut from staring at me as if I was a
spirit of evil. How my breath held out, don't ask me; but I got home,