pa
Perkins, and there was a great funeral and two ministers. He left two
thousand dollars in the bank and a store full of goods, and a paper
thing you could cut tickets off of twice a year, and they were just like
money."

"They watched with my little sister Mira, too," said Rebecca. "You
remember when she died, and I went home to Sunnybrook Farm? It was
winter time, but she was covered with evergreen and white pinks, and
there was singing."

"There won't be any funeral or ministers or singing here, will there?
Isn't that awful?"

"I s'pose not; and oh, Emma Jane, no flowers either. We might get those
for her if there's nobody else to do it."

"Would you dare put them on to her?" asked Emma Jane, in a hushed voice.

"I don't know; I can't tell; it makes me shiver, but, of course, we
COULD do it if we were the only friends she had. Let's look into
the cabin first and be perfectly sure that there aren't any. Are you
afraid?"

"N-no; I guess not. I looked at Gran'pa Perkins, and he was just the
same as ever."

At the door of the hut Emma Jane's courage suddenly departed. She
held back shuddering and refused either to enter or look in. Rebecca
shuddered too, but kept on, drawn by an insatiable curiosity about life
and death, an overmastering desire to know and feel and understand the
mysteries of existence, a hunger for knowledge and experience at all
hazards and at any cost.

Emma Jane hurried softly away from the felt terrors of the cabin, and
after two or three minutes of utter silence Rebecca issued from the
open door, her sensitive face pale and woe-begone, the ever-ready tears
raining down her cheeks. She ran toward the edge of the wood, sinking
down by Emma Jane's side, and covering her eyes, sobbed with excitement:

"Oh, Emma Jane, she hasn't got a flower, and she's so tired and
sad-looking, as if she'd been hurt and hurt and never had any good
times, and there's a weeny, weeny baby side of her. Oh, I wish I hadn't
gone in!"

Emma Jane blenched for an instant. "Mrs. Dennett never said THERE WAS
TWO DEAD ONES! ISN'T THAT DREADFUL? But," she continued, her practical
common sense coming to the rescue, "you've been in once and it's all
over; it won't be so bad when you take in the flowers because you'll
be used to it. The goldenrod hasn't begun to bud, so there's nothing
to pick but daisies. Shall I make a long rope of them, as I did for the
schoolroom?"

"Yes," said Rebecca, wiping her eyes and still so