Now, this is for this room only, and don't you ever tell
a soul! It's as true as I live, they have a furnace where they burn
folks' bodies, for all the world as if they was hick'ry lawgs. My
cousin Salome's nephew that lives in the city saw one once. He thought
it was connected with the gas-works, but he didn't know for sure. Mis'
Penny, if Rejoice Dale was to know that Mel'dy was made into gas--"
Martha Penny clutched the speaker's arm, and laid her hand over her
mouth, with a scared look. The door of the bedroom had swung open in
the breeze, and in the stress of feeling Mandy Loomis had raised her
voice higher and higher, till the last words rang through the house
like the wail of a sibyl. But above the wail another sound was now
rising, the voice of Rejoice Dale,--not calm and gentle, as they had
always heard it, but high-pitched, quivering with intense feeling.
"I see her!" cried the sick woman. "I see the child! Lord, save her!
Lord, save her!"
The two women hurried in, and found her sitting up in bed, her eyes
wide, her arm outstretched, pointing--at what? Involuntarily they
turned to follow the pointing finger, and saw the yellow-washed wall,
and the wreath of autumn leaves that always hung there.
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