That night she rolled away the guardian stone from before the door with the feeling that it was for the last time.  All that night she worked.  She could not go to bed, she could not sleep, and she had gone beyond any frenzy of sorrow and tears.  All her blind and helpless rage against life and the obdurately beneficent force, which had been her conception of Providence, was gone.  When the battle is over there is no more need for the fury of combat.  Sylvia felt her battle was over, and she felt the peace of defeat.

She was to take a few necessaries to the poor-house with her; she had them to pack, and she also had some cleaning to do.

She had a vague idea that the town, which seemed to loom over her like some dreadful shadowy giant of a child’s story, would sell the house, and it must be left in neat order for the inspection of seller and buyer.  “I ain’t goin’ to have the town lookin’ over the house an’ sayin’ it ain’t kept decent,” she said.  So she worked hard all night, and her candle lit up first one window, then another, moving all over the house like a will-o’-the-wisp.

The man who had charge of the poor-house came for her the next morning at ten o’clock.  Sylvia was all ready.  At quarter past ten he drove out of the old road where the Crane house stood and down the village street.  The man’s name was Jonathan Leavitt.  He was quite old but hearty, with a stubbly fringe of white beard around a ruddy face.  He had come on a wood-sled for the greater convenience of bringing Sylvia’s goods.  There were a feather-bed, bolster, and pillows, tied up in an old homespun blanket, on the rear of the sled; there was also a red chest, and a great bundle of bedclothing.  Sylvia sat in her best rocking-chair just behind Jonathan Leavitt, who drove standing.

“It’s a pleasant day for this time of year,” he observed to Sylvia when they started.  Sylvia nodded assent.

Jonathan Leavitt had had a fear lest Sylvia might make a disturbance about going.  Many a time had it taken hours for him to induce a poor woman to leave her own door-stone; and when at length they had set forth, it was to an accompaniment of shrill, piteous lamentations, so strained and persistent that they seemed scarcely human, and more like the cries of a scared cat being hauled away from her home.  Everybody on the road had turned to look after the sled, and Jonathan Leavitt had driven on, looking straight ahead, his face screwed hard, lashing now and then his old horse, with a gruff shout.  Now he felt relieved and grateful to Sylvia for going so quietly.  He was disposed to be very friendly to her.

“You’d better keep your rockin’-chair kind of stiddy,” he said, when they turned the corner into the new road, and the chair oscillated like an uneasy berth at sea.