Mrs. Bates could scarcely be persuaded to go to bed.
When at last Kate went to put out her mother's light, and see that
her feet were warm and her covers tucked, she found her crying.
"Why, Mother!" exclaimed Kate in frank dismay. "Wasn't everything
all right?"
"I'm just so endurin' mad," sobbed Mrs. Bates, "that I could a-
most scream and throw things. Here I am, closer the end of my
string than anybody knows. Likely I'll not see another Christmas.
I've lived the most of my life, and never knowed there was a time
like that on earth to be had. There wasn't expense to it we
couldn't easy have stood, always. Now, at the end of my tether, I
go and do this for my grandchildren. 'Tween their little shining
faces and me, there kept coming all day the little, sad,
disappointed faces of you and Nancy Ellen, and Mary, and Hannah,
and Adam, and Andrew, and Hiram and all the others. Ever since he
went I've thought the one thing I COULDN'T DO WAS TO DIE AND FACE
ADAM BATES, but to-day I ain't felt so scared of him. Seems to me
HE has got about as much to account for as I have.
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