oor-houses and jails and police to
take care of their victims." No; Waitstill reasoned from jest plain
Bible, but of course she found out her mistake. Arvilly said: "You'll
find the nation that opens its sessions with prayer, and engraves on
its money, 'In God We Trust,' don't believe in such things. You'll
find their prayers are to the liquor dealers; their God is the huge
idol of Expediency."

Alan Thorne wuz hung for the murder, guilty, so the earthly court
said. But who wuz sot down guilty in God's great book of Justice that
day? Arvilly believes that over Alan Thorne's name wuz printed:

"Alan Thorne, foolish boy, tempted and ondone by the country he was
trying to save." And then this sentence in fiery flame:

"The United States of America, guilty of murder in the first degree."

Dretful murder, to take the life of the one that loved it and wuz
tryin' to save it.

Well, Arvilly's last thing to love wuz taken from her cruelly, and
when she got strong enough she sot off for Jonesville in her soldier
clothes, for she thought she would wear 'em till she got away, but she
wuz brung back as a deserter and Waitstill stood by her durin' her
trial, and after Alan's death she too wuz smit down, like a posy in a
cyclone. Arvilly, in her own clothes now, tended her like a mother,
and as soon as she wuz able to travel took her back to Jonesville,
where they make their home together, two widders, indeed, though the
weddin' ring don't show on one of their hands.

Waitstill goes about doin' good, waitin' kinder still, some like her
name, till the Lord sends her relief by the angel that shall stand one
day in all our homes. She don't talk much.

But Arvilly's grief is different. She told me one day when I wuz
tellin' her to chirk up and be more cheerful and comfortable:

"I don't want to be comfortable; I don't want to feel any different."

"Whyee, Arvilly!" sez I, "don't you want to see any happiness agin?"

"No, I don't," sez she, "I don't want to take a minute's comfort and
ease while things are in the state they be." Sez she, "Would you want
to set down happy, and rock, and eat peanuts, if you knew that your
husband and children wuz drowndin' out in the canal?"

"No," sez I, "no, indeed! I should rush out there bareheaded, and if I
couldn't save 'em, would feel like dyin' with 'em."

"Well," sez she, short as pie crust, "that's jest how I feel."

I believe and so Josiah duz that Arvilly would walk right up to a
l