of the hardships which
had been the lot of the sleeper. Her clothing was clean and finer than
one would expect to see.

Gearheart stood looking at her for a long time, the door still open,
for he felt re-enforced in some way by the sun. If any one had come
suddenly and closed the door on him and the white figure there, he
would have cried out and struggled like a madman to escape, such was
his unreasoning fear of the dead.

At length, with a long breath, he backed out and closed the door. Going
to the barn, he found a cow standing at an empty manger, and some hens
and pigs frozen in the hay. Looking about for some boards to make a
coffin, he came upon a long box in which a reaper had been packed, and
this he proceeded to nail together firmly, and to line with pieces of
an old stove-pipe at such places as he thought the mice would try to
enter.

When it was all prepared, he carried the box to the house and managed
to lay it down beside the bed; but he could not bring himself to touch
the body. He went out to see if some one were not coming. The sound of
a human voice would have relieved him at once, and he could have gone
on without hesitation. But there was no one in sight, and no one was
likely to be; so he returned, and summoning all his resolution, took
one of the quilts from the bed and placed it in the bottom of the box.
Then he removed the pillow from beneath the head of the dead woman and
placed that in the box. Then he paused, the cold moisture breaking out
on his face.

Like all young persons born far from war, and having no knowledge of
death even in its quiet forms, he had the most powerful organic
repugnance toward a corpse. He kept his eye on it as though it were a
sleeping horror, likely at a sudden sound to rise and walk. More than
this, there had always been something peculiarly sacred in the form of
a woman, and in his calmer moments the dead mother appealed to him with
irresistible power.

At last, with a sort of moan through his set teeth, he approached the
bed and threw the sheet over the figure, holding it as in a sling;
then, by a mighty effort, he swung it stiffly off the bed into the box.

He trembled so that he could hardly spread the remaining quilts over
the dead face. The box was wide enough to receive the stiff, curved
right arm, and he had nothing to do but to nail the cover on, which he
did in feverish haste. Then he rose, grasped his tools, rushed outside,
slammed the door, and s