That night I never
slept. I lay kickin' and tumblin' all night, and before mornin' I'd
resolved to quit Simsbury, and go seek my fortin' beyond seas, hopin'
to come back to Hetty, arter all, with riches to take care on her right
there in the old place. You'd 'a' thought I might have had some kind of
feelin' for my old father, after seein' Hetty's faithful ways; but I was
a man and she was a woman, and I take it them is two different kind o'
craft. Men is allers for themselves first, an' Devil take the hindmost;
but women lives in other folks's lives, and ache, and work, and endure
all sorts of stress o' weather afore they'll quit the ship that's got
crew and passengers aboard.

"I never said nothin' to father,--I couldn't 'a' stood no jawin',--but
I made up my kit, an' next night slung it over my shoulder, and tramped
off. I couldn't have gone without biddin' Hetty goodbye; so I stopped
there, and told her what I was up to, and charged her to tell father.

"She tried her best to keep me to home, but I was sot in my way; so when
she found that out, she run up stairs an' got a little Bible, and made
me promise I'd read it sometimes, and then she pulled that 'are little
ring off her finger and give it to me to keep.

"'Eben,' says she, 'I wish you well always, and I sha'n't never forget
you!'

"And then she put up her face to me, as innocent as a baby, to kiss me
goodbye. I see she choked up when I said the word, though, and I said,
kinder laughin',--

"'I hope you'll get a better husband than me, Hetty!'

"I swear! she give me a look like the judgment-day, and stoopin'
down she pressed her lips onto that ring, and says she, 'That is my
weddin'-ring, Eben!' and goes into the house as still and white as a
ghost; and I never see her again, nor never shall.--Oh, Doctor! give me
a drink!"

I lifted the poor fellow, fevered and gasping, to an easier position,
and wet his hot lips with fresh orange-juice.

"Stop, now, Jackson!" said I, "you are tired."

"No, I a'n't, Doctor! No, I a'n't! I'm bound to finish now. But Lord
deliver us! look there! one of the Devil's own imps, I b'lieve!"

I looked on the little deal stand where I had set the candle, and there
stood one of the quaint, evil-looking insects that infest the island, a
praying Mantis. Raised up against the candle, with its fore-legs in the
attitude of supplication that gives it the name, its long green body
relieved on the white stearin, it was eyeing Jackso