arrived; the overseer sent me word that he thanked me for feeding them so long; they must otherwise have died at their work. The gate was shut, and long and tedious were the next two days. One child of the poor man died, and he buried it in the morning before light, because if he took an hour from labor he would be dismissed. When the poor creatures that had daily been fed with the gruel came, and were told there was no more for them, I felt that I had sealed their doom. They turned away, blessing me again and again, but "we must die of the hunger, God be praised."
I would not say that I actually murmured, but the question did arise, "Why was I brought to see a famine, and be the humble instrument of saving some few alive, and then see these few die, because I had no more to give them?"
Two days and nights dragged on. News was constantly arriving of the fearful state of the people, and the specters that had been before my eyes constantly haunted me. My bedroom overlooked the burying-ground. I could fancy, as I often arose to look into it, that some haggard father was bringing a dead child, lashed to his back, and laying him on some tombstone, as had been done, and leaving it to the mercy of whoever might find it a grave !
I was sitting in solitude, alone, at eleven o'clock, when the man of the house unexpectedly arrived. He had a parcel; in that parcel there was money from New York, and that money was for me!
No being, either Christian or pagan, if he never saw
