It was about a mile and a half distant from home by the main road, though less than a mile through the woods. Much of that part of the country was at that time uncultivated and abounded with wild beasts of every description of the period. I got safely to Mr. C.'s; and had a day so happy that it was only the threatening clouds of an approaching storm which warned me that it was high time to start for home. I set out by the roadway, but Mrs. Cox called me back and sent two of her daughters to escort me through the woods by the shorter paths, familiar to them on their way to school. We had gone about half the distance through the woods, when sharp lightning and heavy thunder announced that the storm was close at hand; and the children left me at a point from which, as they supposed, I could not miss my further way. They gave me directions how to proceed. I followed them, as I supposed; but the darkness soon became intense, and the storm burst in all its fury. The thunder and lightning were terrific, the rain fell in torrents, and I was a very little girl alone in the woods. I heard the distant cries of the inhabitants of the wilderness, and hurriedly pressed forward in the hope of following the right track, but constantly changing my idea of which direction to take. After long wanderings in this way, I fancied it to be about midnight, when the howling of the winds rose to be nearly that of a tornado, and the crashing of falling trees, torn up by the roots, seemed to surround me in all directions. I had been twenty times on my knees, in childish prayer to God to take me home; but perhaps God in heaven is too abstract an idea to be realized by a child of that age, and I would instinctively find myself addressing my great-grandfather, who was the only person whose death I had ever witnessed. I had known him to be good and kind. He was a man of unusual stature and strength. Him I could understand to be in heaven, and powerful to save me. I remember I prayed with my eyes closed, fearing I should behold some terrible phantom, for in our family experience and tradition there had been many strange stories.