“Poor boy!” she said.  “Poor boy!  To-morrow, come to me and I’ll show you your mother’s grave.  I’ll take you to the doctor that attended her.  I know how you feel.”

I had passed a sleepless night before I remembered to feel revolted at the sympathy of this hussy who had helped to bring my mother to her death—­and I did not go near her.  But I inquired my way from one doctor to another—­there were not many in Madison then—­until I found one, named Mix, who had treated my mother in her last illness.  She was weak and run down, he said, and couldn’t stand a run of lung fever, which had carried her off.

“Did she mention me?” I asked.

“At the very last,” said Doctor Mix, “she said once or twice, ’He had to work too hard!’ I don’t know who she meant.  Not Rucker, eh?”

I shook my head—­I knew what she meant.

“And,” said he, “if you can see your way clear to arrange with old Rucker to pay my bill—­winter is on now, and I could use the money.”

I pulled out my pocketbook and paid the bill.

“Thank you, my boy,” said he, “thank you!”

“I’m glad to do it,” I answered—­and turned away my head.

“Anything more I can do for you?” asked Doctor Mix, much kinder than before.

“I’d be much obliged,” I replied, “if you could tell me where I can find some one that’ll be able to show me my mother’s grave.”

“I’ll take you there,” he said quickly.

We rode to the graveyard in his sleigh, the bells jingling too merrily by far, I thought; and then to a marble-cutter from whom I bought a headstone to be put up in the spring.  I worked out an epitaph which Doctor Mix, who seemed to see through the case pretty well, put into good language, reading as follows:  “Here lies the body of Mary Brouwer Vandemark, born in Ulster County, New York, in 1815; died Madison, Wisconsin, October 19, 1854.  Erected to her memory by her son, Jacob T. Vandemark.”  So I cut the name of Rucker from our family record; but, of course, he never knew.

Then the doctor took me back to the tavern, trying to persuade me on the way to locate in Madison.  He had some vacant lots he wanted to show me; and said that he and a company of friends had laid out new towns at half a dozen different places in Wisconsin, and even in Minnesota and Iowa.  Before we got back he saw, though I tried to be civil, that I was not thinking about what he was saying, and so he let me think in peace; but he shook hands with me kindly at parting, and wished I could have got there in September.

“Things might have been different,” said he.  “You’re a darned good boy; and if you’ll stay here till spring I’ll get you a job.”

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