ispatchin' a messenger for us when we
arrove, for, he said, "in a time of trouble, then wuz the time, if ever,
that a man wanted his near relations clost to him."

And he said "we had took a load offen him by appearin' jest as we
did, for there would have been some delay in gettin' us there, if the
messenger had been dispatched."

He said "that mornin' he had felt so bad that he wanted to die--it
seemed as if there wuzn't nothin' left for him to live for; but now he
felt that he had sunthin' to live for, now his relatives wuz gathered
round him."

Josiah shed tears to hear Cephas go on. I myself didn't weep none, but I
wuz glad if we could be any comfort to 'em, and told 'em so.

And I told Sally Ann, that wuz Cephas'ses wife, that I would do anything
I could to help 'em. And she said everything wuz a-bein' done that
wuz necessary. She didn't know of but one thing that wuz likely to be
overlooked and neglected, and that wuz the crazy bedquilt. She said
"she would love to have that finished to throw over a lounge in the
settin'-room, that wuz frayed out on the edges, and if I felt like it,
it _would_ be a great relief to her to have me take it right offen her
hands and finish it."

So I took out my thimble and needle (I always carry such necessaries
with me, in a huzzy made expressly for that purpose), and I sot down and
went to piecin' up. There wuz seventeen blocks to piece up, each one
crazy as a loon to look at, and it wuz all to set together.

She had the pieces, for she had been off on a visitin' tower the week
before, and collected of 'em.

So I sot in quiet and the big chair in the settin'-room, and pieced up,
and see the preparations goin' on round us.

I found that Cephas'ses folks lived in a house big and showy-lookin',
but not so solid and firm as I had seen.

It wuz one of the houses, outside and inside, where more pains had been
took with the porticos and ornaments than with the underpinnin'.

It had a showy and kind of a shaky look. And I found that that extended
to Cephas'ses business arrangements. Amongst the other ornaments of his
buildin's wuz mortgages, quite a lot of'em, and of almost every variety.
He had gin his only child, S. Annie (she wuz named after her mother,
Sally Ann, but spelt it this way), he had gin S. Annie a showy
education, a showy weddin', and a showy settin'-out. But she had
had the good luck to marry a sensible man, though poor.

[Illustration: "So I SOT IN QUIET AND T