ld, and that she grew
more and more fragile and weak as the summer went on. In the hot, dry
days of August she drooped like a thirsty flower, and her strength
failed very fast. Her voice, though still sweet and clear, lost its
shrillness, and one had to draw very close to the little speaker that he
might not lose a word of the stories she told. Aunt Jane York often came
out to us now, anxious and fussy, talking fretfully of and to little
Lib, feeling the small hands and feet to see if they were cold, and
drawing the shawl closer around the wasted form. I know she loved the
little girl, and perhaps she wished now that she had shown that love
more tenderly. She talked freely, in the very presence of the child, of
her rapid decline and the probability that she would not "last long."
Lib said nothing concerning her own condition, and showed no sign of
having heard her aunt's comments. But one day, when Miss York, after
speaking very freely and plainly of the child's approaching end, had
gone indoors, Lib announced, in a low, sweet voice, a new story.

The Boy that was Scaret o' Dyin'

Once there was a boy that was dreadful scaret o' dyin'. Some folks is
that way, you know; they ain't never done it to know how it feels, and
they're scaret. And this boy was that way. He wa'n't very rugged, his
health was sort o' slim, and mebbe that made him think about sech things
more. 'Tany rate, he was terr'ble scaret o' dyin'. 'Twas a long time
ago this was,--the times when posies and creaturs could talk so's folks
could know what they was sayin'.

And one day, as this boy, his name was Reuben,--I forget his other
name,--as Reuben was settin' under a tree, an ellum tree, cryin', he
heerd a little, little bit of a voice,--not squeaky, you know, but small
and thin and soft like,--and he see 'twas a posy talkin'. 'Twas one o'
them posies they call Benjamins, with three-cornered whitey blowths with
a mite o' pink on 'em, and it talked in a kind o' pinky-white voice, and
it says, "What you cryin' for, Reuben?" And he says, "'Cause I'm scaret
o' dyin'," says he; "I'm dreadful scaret o' dyin'." Well, what do you
think? That posy jest laughed,--the most cur'us little pinky-white laugh
't was,--and it says, the Benjamin says: "Dyin'! Scaret o' dyin'? Why, I
die myself every single year o' my life." "Die yourself!" says Reuben.
"You 're foolin'; you're alive this minute." "'Course I be," says the
Benjamin; "but that's neither here nor there,--