The long day at length came to an end. Haldane of necessity had been much away, and he welcomed the cool and quiet evening; and yet he knew that with the shadow of night, though so grateful after the glare and heat to which he had been subjected, the fatal pestilence approached the nearer, as if to strike a deadlier blow. As the pioneer forefathers of the city had shut their doors and windows at nightfall, lest their savage and lurking foes should send a fatal arrow from some dusky covert, so now again, with the close of the day, all doors and windows must be shut against a more subtle and remorseless enemy, whose viewless shafts sped with a surer aim in darkness.
Amy had spent much of the day in unburdening her heart in a long letter to her cousin Laura, in which in her own vivid way she portrayed the part Haldane had acted toward them. She had also written to her distant and unconscious lover, and feeling that it might be the last time, she had poured out to him a passion that was as intense and yet as pure as the transparent flame that we sometimes see issuing from the heart of the hard-wood maple, as we sit brooding over our winter fire.
"Come and sit with us, and as one of us," she had said to Haldane, and so they had all gathered at the bedside of the widow, who had scarcely strength to do more than fix her dark, wistful eyes on one and another of the group. She was so bewildered and overwhelmed with her loss that her mind had partially suspended its action. She saw and heard everything; she remembered it all afterward; but now the very weight of the blow had so stunned her that she was mercifully saved from the agony of full consciousness.
Little Bertha climbed upon Haldane's lap and pleaded for a story.
"Yes, Bertie," he said, "and I think I know a story that you would like. You remember I told you that your papa had gone away with Jesus; would you not like to hear a story about this good friend of your papa's?"
"Yes, yes, I would. Do you know much about him?"
"Quite a good deal, for he's my friend too. I know one true story about him that I often like to think of. Listen, and I will tell it to you. Jesus is the God who made us, and he lives 'way up above the sky.' But he not only made us, Bertie, but he also loves us, and in order to show us how he loves us he is always coming to this world to do us good; and once he came and lived here just like a man, so that we might all be sure that he cared for us and wanted to make us good and happy. Well, at that time when he lived here in this world as a man he had some true friends who loved him and believed in him. At a certain time they were all staying on the shore of a sea, and one evening Jesus told his friends to take a little boat and go over to the other side of the sea, and he would meet them there. Then Jesus, who wanted to be alone, went up the side of the mountain that rose from the water's edge. Then night came and it began to grow darker and darker, and at last it was so dark that the friends of Jesus that were in the boat could only see a very little way. Then a moaning, sighing wind began to rise, and the poor men in the boat saw that a storm was coming, and they pulled hard with their oars in hopes of getting over on the other side before the storm became very bad; but by the time they reached the very middle of the sea, the wind began to blow furiously, just as you have seen it blow when the trees bent 'way over toward the ground, and some perhaps were broken down. A strong wind at sea makes the water rise up in waves, and these waves began to beat against the boat, and before very long some of the highest ones would dash into it. The men pulled with their oars with all their might, but it was of no use; the wind was right against them, and though they did their best hour after hour, they still could get no nearer the shore. How sad and full of danger was their condition! the dark, dark night was above and around them, the dark, angry waves dashing by and over them, the cold, black depths of water beneath them, and no sound in their ears but the wild, rushing storm. What do you think became of them?"