e porch and watched him as far they could see; and
Maw's black mood didn't return for a whole week.

Evenings now they had something different to talk about--journeys in
seagoing craft; foreign countries and the progress of the "Ee-ropean"
war, and Nat's likelihood--he had laughed at this--of touching even its
fringe. They worked it all up from the boiler-plate war news in the
_Bi-weekly_ and Luke's school geography. Yes; for a little space the
blackness was lifted.

Then came the August morning when Paw died. This was an unexpected and
unsettling contingency. One doesn't look for a "chronic's" doing
anything so unscheduled and foreign to routine; but Paw spoiled all
precedent. They found him that morning with his heart quite still, and
Luke knew they stood in the presence of imminent tragedy.

It's all very well to peck along, hand-to-mouth fashion. You can manage
a living of sorts; and farm produce, even scanty, unskillfully
contrived, and the charity of relatives, and the patience of tradesmen,
will see you through. But a funeral--that's different! Undertaker--that
means money. Was it possible that the sordid epic of their lives must be
capped by the crowning insult, the Poormaster and the Pauper's Field? If
only poor Paw could have waited a little before he claimed the
spotlight--until prices fell a little or Nat got back with that "long
green"!

Maw swallowed her bitter pill.

She went to see Uncle Clem and ask! And Uncle Clem was kind.

"He'll buy a casket--he's willin' fur that--an' send a wreath and pay
fur notices, an' even half on a buryin' lot; but he said he couldn't do
no more. The high cost has hit him too.... An' where are we to git the
rest? He said--at the last--it might be better all round fur us to take
what Ellick Flick would gimme outen the Poor Fund--" Maw hadn't been
able to go on for a spell.

A pauper's burial for Paw! Surely Maw would manage better than that! She
tried to find a better way that very night.

"This farm's mortgaged to the neck; but I calculate Ben Travis won't
care if I'm a mind to put Paw in the south field. It hain't no mortal
good fur anything else, anyhow; an' he can lay there if we want. It's a
real pleasant place. An' I can git the preacher myself--I'll give him
the rest o' the broilers; an' they's seasoned hickory plankin' in the
lean-to. Tom, you come along with me."

All night Luke had lain and listened to the sound of big Tom's saw and
hammer. Tom was real ha