Cape Cod Folks | Page 8

old Cap'n 'll see to gettin' it in in the mornin'. Here's a letter the postmaster sent down to the Cap'n's folks. Good night."
'Rasmus, my only hope! I made a convulsive grasp for him in the darkness, but he was gone.
It was she of the soothing, comfortable voice who took me in; and Grandma Keeler's taking in I understand always in the divinest and fullest sense of the term.
Further than that, I was conscious that there were white-robed and nightcapped figures moving about the room. So unearthly was their appearance that I had, at last, a confused notion of having become disengaged from the entanglements of the flesh, and fallen in with a small planetary system in the course of my wanderings through space. The centre of attraction seemed to be a table, to which the figures were constantly bringing more pies.
The letter which 'Rasmus had directed me to hand to the "folks" was read with interest, being the one I had dispatched from Newtown, a week or two before, informing them as to the time of my arrival.
Madeline rendered the brief and business-like epistle with the full effect of her peculiarly thrilling intonation, and Grandma listened with rapt attention; but, meanwhile, Grandpa Keeler and the two little Keelers found time surreptitiously to dispose of nearly a whole pie, with the serious aspect of those who will not allow a mere fleeting diversion to hinder them in the improvement of a rare opportunity.
Having declined to partake of pie, through Grandma Keeler's kind interposition, I was not further urged.
"Thar', poor darlin'," said she; "fix her up a good cup o' your golden seal, pa, and she shall go to bed right in the parlor to-night, seem' as we didn't get the letter, and hain't got her room fixed upstairs. It's all nice and warm, and thar', darlin', thar', we're r'al good for nussin' folks up."
In the parlor, I saw only one great, delicious object--a bed. My weary brain hardly exaggerated its dimensions, which could not have failed to strike with astonishment even the most indifferent observer. It was long; it was broad; it was deep; and, alas! it was high, I disrobed as best I might, and stood before it, gazing despairingly up at its snowy summit.
Then, remembering my experience with the trunk, I approached at one extreme, scaled the headboard, fell over into an absorbing sea of feathers, and, at that very instant it seemed, the perplexing nature of mortal affairs ceased to burden my mind.
CHAPTER II.
I BLOW THE HORN.
Morning dawned on my mission to Wallencamp. My wakening was not an Enthusiastic one. Slowly my bewildered vision became fixed on an object on the wall opposite, as the least fantastic amid a group of objects. It was a sketch in water-colors of a woman in an expansive hoop and a skirt of brilliant hue, flounced to the waist. She stood with a singularly erect and dauntless front, over a grave on which was written "Consort." I observed, with a childlike wonder, which concealed no latent vein of criticism, the glowing carmine of her cheeks, the unmixed blue of her pupilless eyes, from a point exactly in the centre of which a geometric row of tears curved to the earth. A weeping willow--somewhat too green, alas!--drooped with evident reluctance over the scene, but cast no shade on its contrasting richness. The title of the piece was "Bereavement" By some strange means, it served as the pole-star to my wandering thoughts.
As I gazed and wondered my life took on again a definite form and purpose. The events of the preceding day rose in gradual succession before me, and I proceeded to descend from the heights I had scaled the night before.
[Illustration: DAVID ROLLIN INSULTS LUTHER.]
I looked at my watch. It was eight o'clock, and school should begin at nine. Yet the occasion witnessed no feverish display of haste on my part, I saw that the difficulties which I was destined to endure in the Performance of my toilet that morning called either for philosophy or madness. I chose philosophy.
The portion of the Ark surrounding my bed was cut up into little recesses, crannies, nooks,--used, presumably, for storing the different pairs of animals in the trying events which preceded the Flood. In one of these, I had a dim recollection of having secreted my clothes, in the disordered condition of my brain the night before. So I cast desultory glances about me for these articles on the way, having first set out on a search for a looking-glass. In one dark recess I came into forcible contact with a hanging-shelf of pies. I thought what a moment that would have been for Grandpa Keeler and the little Keelers! but I had been brought up on hygienic, as well as moral, principles, and moved