Aunt Rhoda had previously informed me that it was expected I would have
no school that afternoon.
The West Wallen minister officiated on the occasion with an aspect
neither more nor less funereal than he had worn at Lovell's wedding. He
spoke in such a labored, trumpet-like tone of voice that the
Wallencampers seemed, at first, inspired with a lively hope, expecting
momentarily that his breath would give out, but in this they were doomed
to ever-increasing disappointment.
At length, Captain Sartell drew a bucketful of fresh water from the well,
and passed it around the room, winking expansively at each individual in
turn, by way of silent encouragement and support.
Grandma Bartlett, observing the generally tearless aspect of the
community, conscientiously attempted to weep, but being entirely out of
tears, at her time of life, she only succeeded in screwing her face up
into what, in earlier years, might have appeared as a lachrymose
expression, but now took the shape of a fixed and ogreish grin.
The infant Sophronia was seated on a bench of an exceedingly temporary
nature, between Grandma Keeler and Aunt Lobelia, both persons of weight,
and it so chanced, or, rather, it followed as a matter of course, an
equal pressure being applied to both sides, that the board sustaining the
three, broke directly under that diminutive victim of fate, awaking her
thereby from feverish slumber; and whether the infant Sophronia had an
immortal soul or not, no one there present could doubt that she possessed
an uncommon pair of lungs.
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