made her the
center of every story and the object of every moral!

The refreshments were all distributed and diplomatically the mourners
were informed that there was nothing more; nevertheless they stayed on
and on. Nerve-racked and unstrung, Anna staggered to her feet and took
Jamie to the door.

"I'll go mad, dear, if I have to stand it all night!"

They dared not be discourteous. A reputation for heartlessness would
have followed Anna to the grave if she had gone to bed while the dead
child lay there.

Withero had been at old William Farren's wake and was going home when he
saw Anna and Jamie at the door. They explained the situation.

"Take a dandther down toward th' church," he said, "an' then come back."

Willie entered the house in an apparently breathless condition.

"Yer takin' it purty aisy here," he said, "whin 'Jowler' Hainey's
killin' his wife an' wreckin' th' house!"

In about two minutes he was alone. He put a coal in his pipe and smoked
for a minute. Then he went over to the little coffin. He took his pipe
out of his mouth, laid it on the mantel-shelf and returned. The little
hands were folded. He unclasped them, took one of them in his rough
calloused palm.

"Poore wee thing," he said in an undertone, "poore wee thing." He put
the hands as he found them. Still looking at the little baby face he
added:

"Heigho, heigho, it's bad, purty bad, but it's worse where there isn't
even a dead wan!"

When Anna returned she lay down on her bed, dressed as she was, and
Jamie and Withero kept the vigil--with the door barred. Next morning at
the earliest respectable hour Withero carried the little coffin under
his arm and Jamie walked beside him to the graveyard.

During the fifteen years that followed the burial of "the famine child"
they buried three others and saved three--four living and four dead.

I was the ninth child. Anna gave me a Greek name which means "Helper of
men."

Shortly after my arrival in Scott's entry, they moved to Pogue's entry.
The stone cabin was thatch-covered and measured about twelve by sixteen
feet. The space comprised three apartments. One, a bedroom; over the
bedroom and beneath the thatch a little loft that served as a bedroom to
those of climbing age. The rest of it was workshop, dining-room,
sitting-room, parlor and general community news center. The old folks
slept in a bed, the rest of us slept on the floor and beneath the
thatch. Between the bedroom door and the