to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you
reckon that 'll do?"

"Oh, yes."

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was
crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty
sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane."

It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by
herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own
roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to
her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the
hand, hard, and says:

"GOOD-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I
don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of
you a many and a many a time, and I'll PRAY for you, too!"--and she was
gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more
nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that
kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there
warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but
in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my
opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't
no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she lays
over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see her go
out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon I've
thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she
would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good for me
to pray for HER, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see
her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that
you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she
told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of
them's sick."

"Which one?"

"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--"

"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't HANNER?"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."

"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane
said, and they don't think she'll last ma