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Page 34
What was to be done? You could go behind and push them. Or you could go
in front and pull them by the horns.
Neither of these methods exactly striking Keturah's fancy, she took up a
little chip and threw at them; also a piece of coal and a handful of
pebbles. These gigantic efforts proving to be fruitless, she sat down on
the grass and looked at them. The heartless creatures resisted even that
appeal.
At this crisis of her woes one of Keturah's many brilliant thoughts came
to her relief. She hastened upon the wings of the wind to her infallible
resort, the wood-shed, and filled her arms up to the chin with pine
knots. Thus equipped, she started afresh to the conflict. It is recorded
that out of twenty of those sticks, thrown with savage and direful
intent, only one hit. It is, however, recorded that the enemy dispersed,
after being valiantly pursued around the house, out of the front gate
(where one stuck, and got through with the greatest difficulty), and for
a quarter of a mile down the street. In the course of the rout Keturah
tripped on her dress only six times, and fell flat but four. One
pleasing little incident gave delightful variety to the scene. A
particularly frisky and clover-loving white cow, whose heart yearned
after the apples of Sodom, turned about in the road without any warning
whatever and showed fight. Keturah adopted a sudden resolution to return
home "across lots," and climbed the nearest stone-wall with considerable
_empressement_. Exactly half-way over she was surprised to find herself
gasping among the low-hanging boughs of a butternut-tree, where she hung
like Absalom of old, between heaven and earth. She would like to state,
in this connection, that she always had too much vanity to wear a
waterfall; so she still retains a portion of her original hair.
However, she returned victorious over the silent dew-laden fields and
down into the garden paths, where she paced for two hours back and forth
among the aromatic perfumes of the great yellow June lilies. There might
have been a bit of poetry in it under other circumstances, but Keturah
was not poetically inclined on that occasion. The events of the night
had so roused her soul within her, that exercise unto exhaustion was her
sole remaining hope of sleep.
At about two o'clock she crawled faintly upstairs again, and had just
fallen asleep with her head on the window-sill, when a wandering dog had
to come directly under the window, and sit there and bark for half an
hour at a rake-handle.
Keturah made no other effort to fight her destiny. Determined to meet
it heroically, she put a chair precisely into the middle of the room,
and sat up straight in it, till she heard the birds sing. Somewhere
about that epoch she fell into a doze with one eye open, when a terrific
peal of thunder started her to her feet. It was Patsy knocking at the
door to announce that her breakfast was cold.
In the ghastly condition of the following day the story was finished and
sent off. It was on this occasion that the patient and long-enduring
editor ventured mildly to suggest, that when, by a thrilling and
horrible mischance, Seraphina's lovely hand came between a log of wood
and the full force of Theodore's hatchet, the result _might_ have been
more disastrous than the loss of a finger-nail. Alas! even his editorial
omniscience did not know--how could it?--the story of that night.
Keturah forgave him.
It is perhaps worthy of mention that Miss Humdrum appeared promptly at
eight o'clock the next morning, with her handkerchief at her eyes.
"My Star-spangled Banner has met with her decease, Ketury."
"Indeed! How very sad!"
"Yes. She has met with her decease. Under _very_ peculiar circumstances,
Ketury."
"Oh!" said Ketury, hunting for her own handkerchief; finding three in
her pocket, she brought them all into requisition.
"And I feel it my duty to inquire," said Miss Humdrum, "whether it may
happen that _you_ know anything about the event, Ketury."
"I?" said Keturah, weeping, "I didn't know she was dead even! Dear Miss
Humdrum, you are indeed afflicted."
"But I feel compelled to say," pursued Miss Humdrum, eying this wretched
hypocrite severely, "that my girl Jemimy _did_ hear somebody fire a gun
or a cannon or something out in your garden last night, and she scar't
out of her wits, and my poor cat found cold under the hogshead this
morning, Ketury."
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