house and go right to
bed.'

"So we all walked back to the house, and the doctor went to the front
room where he'd left his medicine case, and he picked it up and turned
around and faced Miles, and says he, 'Miles, lose no time about
getting some one to do your work, for Hannah's going to rest under
that tree for many a day.' Says he, 'There's a time in a woman's life
when every burden ought to be lifted from her shoulders, and Hannah's
reached that time. She's like a worn out field that's borne its
harvests year after year and needs to lie fallow for awhile.' Says he,
'Look at your seven children, your six-foot sons and your handsome
daughters, and think of the little baby lying out in the burying
ground. How can you talk about sending the mother of your children to
the lunatic asylum, and all because she's undone a little of your work
in the last few weeks, when you've been undoing hers all your married
life?' Says he, 'You're a hard man, Miles; your nature's like one of
the barren, rocky spots you'll come across in one of your
pastures--spots where not even a blade of grass can grow.' Says he,
'You can't change your nature any more than the Ethiopian can change
his color or the leopard his spots, but from this time on you've got
to try to treat Hannah with a little consideration.' And I believe
Miles did try. I ricollect seein' him help Hannah put on her shawl one
Sunday after church, and pull it around her shoulders mighty awkward,
jest as a person would, when he's doin' a thing he never did before. I
don't reckon Hannah keered much about it. A man oughtn't to have to
try to be kind to his wife, and when a woman comes to the end of a
hard life like Hannah's, a little kindness don't amount to much. It's
mighty hard to make a thing end right, honey, unless it begins right.

"Hannah got well, though, and the first time she come to church she
looked ten years younger; but she never was as strong as she was
before she broke down, and I always thought she died before her time.
It looked like a curious way to treat a sick person, to put her out in
a field and not give her a drop o' medicine, but that was what Hannah
wanted, and it made her well. You know the Bible says, 'Hope deferred
maketh the heart sick.' And I reckon the cure for that kind o'
sickness is havin' the thing you've been hopin' for.

"Hannah said at first she jest laid still with her eyes shut, and felt
the wind blowin' over her face, and then she got t