nin' as if her heart would break.

She thought her Pa wuz dead.

It seemed that he had cut his head dretfully with a tree branch
a-fallin' onto it, and had jest made out to git to the house before he
fainted; and his little girl, havin' never seen a faint, thought it wuz
death; and it _is_ its first cousin.

Wall, here wuz a place for Arvilly's patience, and pluck, and faculty,
to soar round in.

The first thing, she took up the little lame girl in her arms--a sweet
little creeter of five summers--and sot her in a chair, and comforted
her by tellin' her that her Pa would be all right in a few minutes.

And she then, (and I don't spoze that she had ever been nigher to a
good-lookin' man than from three to five feet,) but she had to lift up
his head and wash the blood from the clusterin' brown hair, with some
threads of silver in it, and tear her own handkerchief into strips to
bind up his wounds; and she had some court-plaster with her and other
neccessaries, and some good intment, and she is handy at everything,
Arvilly is.

Wall, by the time that a pair of good-lookin' blue eyes opened agin on
this world, Arvilly had got the pretty little girl all washed and
comforted, and a piller under his head; and the minute his blue eyes
opened a spark flew out of 'em right from that piller that kindled up a
simultanous one in the cool gray orbs of Arvilly.

Wall, although he had his senses, he couldn't move or be moved for a day
and a half. He didn't want nobody sent for, and Arvilly dassent leave
'em alone to go; so as a Christian she had to take holt and take care on
'em.

Wall, Arvilly always wuz, and always will be, I spoze, as good a
housekeeper and cook as ever wuz made.

So I spoze it wuz a sight to see how quick she got that disordered
settin'-room to lookin' cozy and home-like, and a good supper on a table
drawed up to the side of the little lame girl.

And I spoze that it wuz one of the strangest experiences that ever took
place on this planet, and I d'no as they ever had any stranger ones in
Mars or Jupiter. Arvilly had to kinder feed the invalid man, Cephus
Shute by name--had to kinder kneel down by him and hold the plate and
teacup, and help him to eat.

And, strange to say, Arvilly wuzn't skairt a mite--she ruther enjoyed it
of the two; for before two days wuz over she owned up that if there wuz
any extra good bits she'd ruther he'd have 'em than to have 'em herself.

[Illustration: And, strange to sa