“If I hadn’t wanted the apples, or if the light hadn’t gone out, or if Captain Rheid hadn’t come, or if he hadn’t locked the door!  Would I have to stay till Josie came?  And if I pounded and screamed wouldn’t she be frightened and run away?

“After prowling around and hitting myself and knocking myself I stood still again and wondered what to do!  I wanted to scream and cry, but that wouldn’t have done any good and I should have felt more alone than ever afterward.  Nobody could come there to hurt me, that was certain, and I could stamp the rats away, and there were apples and potatoes and turnips to eat?  But suppose it had to last all night!  I was too frightened to waste any tears, and too weak to stand up, by this time, so I found a seat on the stairs and huddled myself together to keep warm, and prayed as hard as I ever did in my life.

“I thought about Peter in prison; I thought about everything I could think of.  I could hear the clock strike and that would help me bear it, I should know when night came and when morning came.  The cows would suffer, too, unless father had thrown down hay enough for them; and the fires would go out, and what would father and mother think when they came home to-morrow?  Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding?  Would I add to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again?  Would I faint away and never ‘come to’?  When I wrote ‘adventure’ upstairs by the master’s fire I did not mean a dreadful thing like this!  Staying alone all night was nothing compared to this.  I had never been through anything compared to this.  I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold as it might have been, and there was really nothing to be afraid of.  I had nothing to do and I was in the dark.  I began to think of all the stories I knew about people who had been imprisoned and what they had done.  I couldn’t write a Pilgrim’s Progress, I couldn’t even make a few rhymes, it was too lonesome; I couldn’t sing, my voice stopped in my throat.  I thought about somebody who was in a dark, solitary prison, and he had one pin that he used to throw about and lose and then crawl around and find it in the dark and then lose it again and crawl around again and find it.  I had prowled around enough for the steps; that amusement had lost its attraction for me.  And then the clock struck.  I counted eleven, but had I missed one stroke?  Or counted too many?  It was not nine when I lighted that candle.  Well, that gave me something to reason about, and something new to look forward to.  How many things could I do in an hour?  How many could I count?  How many Bible verses could I repeat?  Suppose I began with A and repeated all I could think of, and then went on to B.  ’Ask, and ye shall receive.’  How I did ask God to let me out in some way, to bring somebody to help me?  To send somebody.  Would not Captain Rheid come back again?  Would not Morris change his mind and come home to dinner? or at night?  And would Mr. Holmes certainly go to hear that lecture?  Wasn’t there anybody to come?  I thought about you and how sorry you would be, and, I must confess it, I did think that I would have something to write to you and Hollis about. (Please let him see this letter; I don’t want to write all this over again.)