“My heart was most broke by that time, and I knew I should give in ’fore Monday.  But I set and sewed and listened to the tinkle tankle of the drops in the pans set round to ketch ’em, for the house leaked like a sieve.  Mis Bascurn was down suller putterin’ about, for every kag and sarce jar was afloat.  Moses, her brother, was lookin’ after his stock and tryin’ to stop the damage.  All of a sudden he bust in lookin’ kinder wild, and settin’ down the lantern, he sez, sez he:  ’You’re ruthern an unfortinate woman to-night, Mis Wilkins.’  ‘How so?’ sez I, as ef nuthin’ was the matter already.  “‘Why,’ sez he, ’the spilins have give way up in the rayvine, and the brook ’s come down like a river, upsot your lean-to, washed the mellion patch slap into the road, and while your husband was tryin’ to git the pig out of the pen, the water took a turn and swep him away.’

“‘Drownded?’ sez I, with only breath enough for that one word.  ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ sez Moses, ‘nothin’ ever did come up alive after goin’ over them falls.’

“It come over me like a streak of lightenin’; every thin’ kinder slewed round, and I dropped in the first faint I ever had in my life.  Next I knew Lisha was holdin’ of me and cryin’ fit to kill himself.  I thought I was dreamin’, and only had wits enough to give a sort of permiscuous grab at him and call out: 

“‘Oh, Lisha! ain’t you drownded?’ He give a gret start at that, swallered down his sobbin’, and sez as lovin’ as ever a man did in this world: 

“‘Bless your dear heart, Cynthy, it warn’t me it was the pig;’ and then fell to kissin’ of me, till betwixt laughin’ and cryin’ I was most choked.  Deary me, it all comes back so livin’ real it kinder takes my breath away.”

And well it might, for the good soul entered so heartily into her story that she unconsciously embellished it with dramatic illustrations.  At the slapping episode she flung an invisible “fork, dish, and pertaters” into an imaginary kettle, and glared; when the catastrophe arrived, she fell back upon her chair to express fainting; gave Christie’s arm the “permiscuous grab” at the proper moment, and uttered the repentant Lisha’s explanation with an incoherent pathos that forbid a laugh at the sudden introduction of the porcine martyr.

“What did you do then?” asked Christie in a most flattering state of interest.

“Oh, law!  I went right home and hugged them children for a couple of hours stiddy,” answered Mrs; Wilkins, as if but one conclusion was possible.

“Did all your troubles go down with the pig?” asked Christie, presently.