hour, steady. When it got to be mornin', it didn't
seem no cooler; there wa'n't a breath of wind, and the locusts in the
woods chittered as though they was fryin'. Our hired man was an old
Scotchman, by name Simon Grant; and when he'd got his breakfast, he
said he'd go down the clearin' and bring up a load of brush for me to
burn. So he drove off with the team, and, havin' cleared up the
dishes, I put baby to sleep, and took my pail to the barn to milk the
cow,--for we kept her in a kind of a home-lot like, a part that had
been cleared afore we come, lest she should stray away in the woods,
if we turned her loose; she was put in the barn, too, nights, for fear
some stray wild-cat or bear might come along and do her a harm. So I
let her into the yard, and was jest a-goin' to milk her when she begun
to snort and shake, and finally giv' the pail a kick, and set off,
full swing, for the fence to the lot. I looked round to see what was
a-comin', and there, about a quarter of a mile off, I see the most
curus thing I ever see before or since,--a cloud as black as ink in
the sky, and hangin' down from it a long spout like, something like an
elephant's trunk, and the whole world under it looked to be all beat
to dust. Before I could get my eyes off on't, or stir to run, I see it
was comin' as fast as a locomotive; I heerd a great roar and
rush,--first a hot wind, and then a cold one, and then a crash,--an'
'twas all as dark as death all round, and the roar appeared to be
a-passin' off.

I didn't know for quite a spell where I was. I was flat on my face,
and when I come to a little, I felt the grass against my cheek, and I
smelt the earth; but I couldn't move, no way; I couldn't turn over,
nor raise my head more'n two inches, nor draw myself up one. I was
comfortable so long as I laid still; but if I went to move, I
couldn't. It wasn't no use to wriggle; and when I'd settled that, I
jest went to work to figger out where I was and how I got there, and
the best I could make out was that the barn-roof had blowed off and
lighted right over me, jest so as not to hurt me, but so't I could'nt
move.

Well, there I lay. I knew baby was asleep in the trundle-bed, and
there wa'n't no fire in the house; but how did I know the house wa'n't
blowed down? I thought that as quick as a flash of lightnin'; it
kinder struck me; I couldn't even see, so as to be certain! I wasn't
naterally fond of children, but somehow one's own is different, and
b