She wishes Mr. Darley were on hand, to immortalize the picture they made, scouring the premises after those disobliging burglars,—­especially Keturah, in the green wrapper, with her hair rolled all up in a huge knob on top of her head, to keep it out of the way, and her pistol held out at arm’s-length, pointed falteringly, directly at the stars.  She will inform the reader confidentially—­tell it not in Gath—­of a humiliating discovery she made exactly four weeks afterward, and which she has never before imparted to a human creature,—­it wasn’t loaded.

Well, they peered behind every door, they glared into every shadow, they squeezed into every crack, they dashed into every corner, they listened at every cranny and crevice, step and turn.  But not a burglar!  Of course not.  A regiment might have run away while Amram was waking up.

Keturah thinks it will hardly be credited that this hopeful person dared to suggest and dares to maintain that it was Cats!

But she must draw the story of her afflictions to a close.  And lest her “solid” reader’s eyes reject the rambling recital as utterly unworthy the honor of their notice, she is tempted to whittle it down to a moral before saying farewell.  For you must know that Keturah has learned several things from her mournful experience.

1.  That every individual of her acquaintance, male and female, aged and youthful, orthodox and heretical, who sleeps regularly nine hours out of the twenty-four, has his or her own especial specimen recipe of a “perfectly harmless anodyne” to offer, with advice thrown in.

2.  That nothing ever yet put her to sleep but a merciful Providence.

3.  A great respect for Job.

4.  That the notion commonly and conscientiously received by very excellent people, that wakeful nights can and should be spent in prayer, religious meditation, and general spiritual growth, is all they know about it.  Hours of the extremest bodily and mental exhaustion, when every nerve is quivering as if laid bare, and the surface of the brain burning and whirling to agony, with the reins of control let loose on every rebellious and every senseless thought, are not the times most likely to be chosen for the purest communion with God.  To be sure.  King David “remembered Him upon his bed, and meditated upon Him in the night-watches.”  Keturah does not undertake to contradict Scripture, but she has come to the conclusion that David was either a very good man, or he didn’t lie awake very often.

But, over and above all, haec fabula docet: 

5.  That people who can sleep when they want to should keep Thanksgiving every day in the year.

The Day of My Death[1]

[Footnote 1:  The characters in this narrative are fictitious.  The incidents the author does not profess to have witnessed.  But they are given as related by eye-witnesses whose testimony would command a verdict from any honest jury.  The author, however, draws no conclusions and suggests none.]