?"

I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I
couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that
corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So
for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says:

"I'd ruther not TELL you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't
mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and
you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you
reckon that 'll do?"

"Oh, yes."

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was
crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty
sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by
herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own
roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to
her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the
hand, hard, and says:

"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I
don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of
you a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was
gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more
nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that
kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there
warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but
in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my
opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't
no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays
over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go
out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've
thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she
would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me
to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see
her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that
you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she
told me to tell