THE BACKSLIDING
ish me, I can't help it. I've believed in you all my life, and I'm sixty-two and I'm going to die in a thunder-storm. If it'll save me to believe in the Holy Ghost, then I'll have to be damned eternally as the Widder Sheldon says you'll do, for I can't, I can't, I can't! I' been a believer all my life, and I' only been this way two weeks, and if that counts against all the rest, I'll just haf to go to hell, that's all. Feelin' as I do, you can't expect me to change for a thunder-storm, Lord, scairt as I be. It don't make no difference that I'm scairt, I feel just the same. I' been a sinful woman, an' I pray to be forgiven, but I can't change. Lord, I can't, an' you wouldn't respect me if I was ter. Amen."
A glare that seemed to brighten the wood for minutes and a terrific burst of thunder answered her. With a little gasp she fell backward and lay unconscious. The storm raged about her, but she knew nothing of it. A little withered old woman, she lay in a heap in the lap of all the elements, and they beat upon her like a leaf.
If it were hours or minutes she did not know, but she opened her eyes with pain upon a quiet
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