e grave, her poor, frowzy
head showin,' an' she tacked away like we told her to, an' she never
said another word. Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb didn't say nothin',
either, only looked at me mother-knowin'. Them two--Mis' Toplady more'n
anybody in Friendship, acts like bein' useful is bein' alive an' nothin'
else is. They see what I was doin', well enough--only I donno's they'd
'a' called it what I did, 'bout the Lord's housekeepin' an all. An' I
knew I couldn't gentle 'Leven into the _i_-dee, but I judged I could
shock it into her--same as her an' the Big Lil kind have to hev. Some
folks you hev to shoot _i_-dees at, muzzle to brain.

"I donno if you've took it in that when you're in a grave, or 'round
one, your talk sort o' veers that way? Ours did. Mis' Banker Mason's
baby had just died in March, an' the choir'd made an awful scandal,
breakin' down in the fifth verse of 'One poor flower has drooped and
faded.' They'd stood 'em in a half circle where they could look right
down on the little thing. An' when the choir got to

"But we feel no thought of sadness
For our friend is happy now,
She has knelt in heartfelt gladness
Where the holy angels bow,

they just naturally broke down an' cried, every one of 'em. An' then the
little coffin was some to blame, too--it was sort of a little Lord
Fauntleroy coffin, with a broad white puff around, an' most anybody
would a' cried when they looked in it, even empty. But Doctor June, he
just stood up calm, like his soul was his body, an' he begun to pray
like God was there in the parlour, Him feelin' as bad as we, an' not
doin' the child's death Himself at all, like we'd been taught--but
sorrowin' with us, for some o' His housekeepin' gone wrong. An' by the
time Banker an' Mis' Mason got in the close' carriage an' took the
little thing's casket on their knees--you know we do that here, not
havin' any white hearse--why, we was all feelin' like God Almighty was
hand in hand in sorrow with us. An' it's never left me since. I know He
is.

"We talked that over while 'Leven tacked the evergreen on the white
cloth. An' I know Mis' Toplady says she'd stayed with Mis' Banker Mason
so much since then that she felt God had sort o' singled her--Mis'
Toplady--out, to give her a chanst to do His work o' comfortin'. 'I've
just let my house go,' s'she, 'an' I've got the grace to see it don't
matter if I have.' Mis' Toplady ain't one o' them turtle women that
their houses is sh