l. Mind you, when I made him
overalls I always had to put a piece of stuff out on the woodpile to
fade fer patches. Bill never could bear to look at a patch of new
stuff put on when the rest was faded."

"Well, he couldn't see the patch, could he, auntie?" Jimmy asked,
making a shrewd guess at the location of it.

"Maybe he couldn't," Bill's wife answered proudly. "But he knew it
was there."

"Where he wuz now?" Danny asked, his mind still turning to the
ultimate destiny.

Mrs. Shenstone did not at once reply, and the children were afraid
that her silence boded ill for Bill's present happiness. She stirred
her tea absent-mindedly. "If there's a quiet field up in heaven, with
elm-trees around it," she said at last; "elm-trees filled with
singin' birds, a field that slopes down maybe to the River of Life, a
field that they want ploughed, Bill will be there with old Bess and
Doll, steppin' along in the new black furrow in his bare feet,
singin':

There's a city like a bride,
just beyond the swellin' tide.

He always said that would be heaven for him 'thout no harp or big
procession, and I am sure Bill would never hear to a crown or such as
that. Bill was a terrible quiet man, but a better-natured man never
lived. So I think, Tommy, that your Uncle Bill is ploughin' down on
the lower eighty, where maybe the marsh marigolds and buttercups
bloom all the year around--there's a hymn that says somethin' about
everlasting spring abides and never witherin' flowers, so I take it
from that that the ploughin' is good all the year around, and that'll
just suit Bill."

When the meal was over, Aunt Katie complacently patted her teeth back
into place. "I never like no one to see me without them," she said,
"exceptin' my own folks. I tell you, I suffer agonies when there's a
stranger in for a meal. Now, Jane, let's git the children to bed.
Mary and Pearl, you do the dishes. Hustle, you young lads, git off
your boots now and scoot for bed. I never could bear the clatter of
children. Come here, and I'll loosen your laces"--this to Bugsey, who
sat staring at her very intently. "What's wrong with you?" she
exclaimed, struck by the intent look on his face.

"I'm just thinkin'," Bugsey answered, without removing his eyes from
the knothole on the door.

"And what are you thinkin'?" she demanded curiously.

"I'm just thinkin' how happy my Uncle Bill must be up
there...ploughin'...without any one to bother him."

Mrs. Shenst