"Yes, it has been considerable long, I am free to confess," replied Polly, who thought she had had a very hard time keeping house, as was indeed the truth.

"Do you s'pose, Miss Polly, that some morning the sun won't rise any more?"

"O, yes," replied Miss Polly, who was always ready with a hymn:--

"'G.o.d reigns above,--he reigns alone; Systems burn out, and leave His throne.'

"Why, yes, dear; the world will certainly come to an end one of these days; and _then_ the sun won't rise, of course; there won't be any sun."

And Miss Polly began to hum one of her sorrowful tunes, beating time with the two streams of milk which dripped mournfully into the pail.

"She is afraid this is the end of the world," thought Dotty, with a throbbing heart, and a stifling sensation at the throat; "she don't believe the sun is ever going to rise any more."

The music suddenly ceased.

"These are very poor cows," said Polly, in a reflective tone; "or else they don't give down their milk. I understood you to say, Dotty, that Ruth milked very early."

"If everything's coming to an end, it's no wonder the cows act so," said Dotty, to herself, but she dared not say it aloud.

They went into the house, the trail of Susy's long wrapper following after little Dotty Dimple like the closing feet in one of Polly's long-metre verses. Still the moon shone with the same white, ghostly light, and the sun continued to keep away.

"This beats all," said Polly, mournfully; as she washed her hands, strained the milk, and set the pans away. "If I judged by my feelings, I should say it must be six o'clock, or very near it. At any rate, I'm going to have a cup of tea. What's this smell?"

On the stove stood a pool of something which looked like liquid silver, and proved to be the remains of the best tea-pot. At any other time Dotty would have felt very sorry; but now the accident seemed a mere trifle, when compared with the staying away of the sun. Who could tell "if ever morn should rise?"

Even Miss Polly, with her const.i.tutional gloom, was not just now so miserable as Dotty, and never dreamed that it was anything but sleepiness which made the little girl so sober. Dotty was not a child who could tell all the thoughts which troubled her youthful brain.

"Well, well," said Polly, giving another inquiring glance at the sky; "not a streak of daylight yet! I'll tell you what it is, Dotty; we might as well go to bed."

But hark! As she spoke there was a loud report as of a pistol. It seemed to come from the cellar.

Miss Polly clapped both hands to her ears. Dotty shrieked, and hid her face in her lap, and shrieked again.

"It has come! It has come!" cried she,--meaning the end of the world,--and stopped her ears.

"What, what, what!" whispered Polly, in sore affright, walking back and forth, and taking snuff as she went. It was certainly startling to hear a pistol go off so unexpectedly, at that solemn hour, under one's very roof. Polly naturally thought first of housebreakers. She had barred and double-barred every door and window; but now she remembered with dreadful remorse she had not fastened the outside cellar door. No doubt it had been left open, and burglars had got into the cellar. O, what a responsibility had been put upon her! and why hadn't somebody particularly warned her to attend to that door? Perhaps the burglars were stealing pork. But they would not have fired a pistol at the barrel--would they? O, no; they were trying to blow up the house!

Polly took three pinches of snuff, one after the other, as fast as she could, slipped off her shoes, went to the kitchen window, and peeped through the blinds. Not much to be seen but moonlight, and the deep shadows of the ragged trees.

Another pistol-shot; then another. The sound came from that part of the cellar called the soap-room, directly under Polly's feet.

She did not wait for further warning. Every moment was precious. She meant to save what lives she could, for Polly was strictly conscientious. She took the nearly frantic Dotty into the china closet, dragging her like a sack of meal, and turned the key.

"Stay there, child, if you know when you're well off," whispered she through the keyhole. "The house is blowing up. I'm going to call Abner."

In her consternation Polly had not reflected that Dotty was as likely to be blown up in the closet as anywhere else. The unfortunate little girl screamed and struggled in her prison in vain. There was no way of escape. Night of horrors! As far as she was concerned, there were two ends to the world, and they were coming right together. Her agony is not to be described.

Abner came very soon; but it seemed an age. Being a brave man who had served three months in the army, he had the courage to walk down cellar and face the enemy.

He found nothing worse, however, than a few bottles of beer which had blown off their own heads. He brought them up in his arms.

"Here," said he, "are your burglars, with their throats cut from ear to ear."

"Well, if I ever had such a fright in all the days of my life!" cried Polly, staring at the bottles, and catching her breath.

Abner poured some of the beer into a goblet, and drank to the health of Miss Dimple, who climbed upon his knee, and felt as if the world had suddenly stopped coming to an end; and she was greatly relieved.

"But who fired the guns?" said she, not understanding yet what it all meant.

"It was only the beer coming out to get the air," said Abner, taking another gla.s.s. "You couldn't expect beer with the spirit of a hop in it to stay bottled up with a stopper in!"

"I never had such queer feelings," exclaimed Polly, rolling up her eyes; "and now it's all over, I feel as if I was going to faint away."

"I wouldn't advise you to," said Abner, coolly. "The enemy is routed, and victory is ours. Drink a little beer, Polly; it will revive your spirits. But what is the object, may I ask, of your prowling about the house with this poor little girl at this hour of night?"

"Why, what time is it? I thought by my feelings it must have been daybreak long enough ago."

It was Abner's private opinion that Polly would do well to think less of her "feelings" now and always; but he only said, consulting his watch,--

"It's just one o'clock, ladies; time for respectable people to be in bed."

Polly said she had never felt such surprise before in her life. She was afraid she should be sick; for sitting up in the night was always too much for her.

Dotty said her prayers over again, and fell into a sleep "sweeter than a nest of nightingales." And with her last waking thought she thanked G.o.d the round red sun was not worn out yet, and the world had not come to an end.

CHAPTER XI.

CRAZY DUCKLINGS.

When the family came home, Miss Polly had a most doleful story to tell about Katie's experiment in the watering-trough, the child's illness, the explosion of the beer, and her own fright and "dreadful feelings."

Mrs. Parlin regretted the loss of the tea-pot; Miss Louise said she had heard of "witches making tea," and perhaps this was the way they did it.

In return for Miss Whiting's laborious services in taking care of the children, Mrs. Parlin gave her various articles of food to carry home; for Polly had one room in Mr. Grant's house, which she was accustomed to call her home, though she did not stay there very much. Polly sighed her grat.i.tude, put on her dark bonnet, and said, as she went away,--

"Now, Mrs. Parlin, if it should so happen that you should all go away again, don't fail to ask me to come and keep house. You have always been so kind to me that I feel it a privilege to do any such little thing for you."

But in her heart poor Polly thought it was anything but a "little thing," and it cost her a great effort to promise to undertake it again.

Mrs. Parlin thanked Miss Polly very politely; but for her part she thought privately it would be a long while before they would, any of them, be willing to trust such a nervous person with the care of the children a second time.

"Good by, all," said Polly, going off with her double-covered basket on her arm; "remember me to Margaret when you write."

"What a funny thing to say!" remarked Prudy; "how can we remember people to anybody, or forget them to anybody either?"