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Page 30
"I'll have her out yet. I'm an old man, but I can help. She's my little
gal, ye see. Hand me that there dipper of water; it'll keep her from
choking, may be. Now! Keep cheery, Sene! Your old father'll get ye out.
Keep up good heart, child! That's it!"
"It's no use, father. Don't feel bad, father. I don't mind it very
much."
He hacked at the timber; he tried to laugh; he bewildered himself with
cheerful words.
"No more ye needn't, Senath, for it'll be over in a minute. Don't be
downcast yet! We'll have ye safe at home before ye know it. Drink a
little more water,--do now! They'll get at ye now, sure!"
But above the crackle and the roar a woman's voice rang out like a
bell:--
"We're going home, to die no more."
A child's notes quavered in the chorus. From sealed and unseen graves,
white young lips swelled the glad refrain,--
"We're going, going home."
The crawling smoke turned yellow, turned red. Voice after voice broke
and hushed utterly. One only sang on like silver. It flung defiance down
at death. It chimed into the lurid sky without a tremor. For one stood
beside her in the furnace, and his form was like unto the form of the
Son of God. Their eyes met. Why should not Asenath sing?
"Senath!" cried the old man out upon the burning bricks; he was scorched
now, from his gray hair to his patched boots.
The answer came triumphantly,--
"To die no more, no more, no more!"
"Sene! little Sene!"
But some one pulled him back.
Night-Watches.
Keturah wishes to state primarily that she is good-natured. She thinks
it necessary to make this statement, lest, after having heard her story,
you should, however polite you might be about it, in your heart of
hearts suspect her capable not only of allowing her angry passions to
rise, but of permitting them to boil over "in tempestuous fury wild and
unrestrained." If it were an orthodox remark, she would also add, from
like motives of self-defence, that she is not in the habit of swearing.
Are you accustomed, O tender-hearted reader, to spend your nights, as a
habit, with your eyes open or shut? On the answer to this question
depends her sole hope of appreciation and sympathy.
She begs you will understand that she does not mean you, the be-ribboned
and be-spangled and be-rouged frequenter of ball and _soir�e_, with your
well-taught, drooping lashes, or wide girl's eyes untamed and wondering,
your flushing color, and your pulse up to a hundred. You are very pretty
for your pains,--O, to be sure you are very pretty! She has not the
heart to scold you, though you are dancing and singing and flirting
away your golden nights, your restful, young nights, that never come but
once,--though you are dancing and singing and flirting yourselves
merrily into your grave. She would like to put in a plea before the
eloquence of which Cicero and Demosthenes, Beecher and Sumner, should
pale like wax-lights before the sun, for the new fashion said to be
obtaining in New York, that the _soir�e_ shall give place to the
_matin�e_, at which the guests shall assemble at four o'clock in the
afternoon, and are expected to go home at seven or eight. That would be
not only civilized, it would be millennial.
But Keturah is perfectly aware that you will do as you will. If the
excitement of the "wee sma' hours ayont the twal" prove preferable to a
quiet evening at home, and a good, Christian, healthy sleep after it,
why the "sma' hours" it will be. If you will do it, it is "none of her
funerals," as the small boy remarked. Only she particularly requests you
not to insult her by offering her your sympathy. Wait till you know what
forty-eight mortal, wide-awake, staring, whirring, unutterable hours
mean.
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