guess
I did like you more than I supposed.'

Then he kissed her pale forehead and went to his room, where he smoked
the night through, and in the morning felt as if he had lived a hundred
years since the previous night, and wondered how he should get through
the day. It occurred to him that it might be the proper thing to see
his mother; and after his breakfast he went to her room, and was
received by her with a burst of tears and reproaches for his
indifference and lack of feeling in keeping himself away from everybody,
as if it were nothing to him that Maude was dead, or that there was
nothing for him to do.

'Thunderation, mother!' Tom exclaimed, 'would you have me yell and
scream, and make a fool of myself? I sat up all night long, which was
more than you did, and I've been meditating in the woods, and have seen
Maude and made it square with her. What more can I do?'

'You can see to things,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'Your father is all broken
up and has gone to bed, and it is not becoming in me to be around.
Somebody must take the helm.'

'And somebody has,' Tom answered her. 'Uncle Arthur is master of the
ceremonies now. He is running the ranch, and running it well, to.'

And Tom was right, for Arthur had taken the helm, and aided and abetted
by Jerrie, was quietly attending to matters and arranging for the
funeral, which Dolly said must be in the house, as she would not go to
the church, with a gaping crowd to stare at her. So it was to take place
at the house on Friday afternoon, and Arthur ordered a costly coffin
from New York, with silver mountings and panels, and almost a car-load
of flowers and floral designs, for Jerrie had explained to him Maude's
wishes with regard to her grave, which they lined first with the
freshest of the boughs from the four pines, filling these again with
flowers up to the very top, so that the grave when finished seemed like
one mass of flowers, in which it would not be hard to lie.

Dolly had objected to Billy as one of the pall-bearers. He was too short
and inferior looking, she said, and not at all in harmony with Dick, and
Fred, and Paul Crosby, the young man who, in Harold's absence, had been
asked to take his place. But Arthur overruled her with the words 'It was
Maude's wish,' and Billy kept his post.

The day arrived, and the hour, and the people came in greater crowds
than they had done when poor Jack was buried, or the dark woman,
Nannine, with only Jerrie as chief mou