Mrs. Hamilton went on through the whole incident, telling every single thing just the way old Jed did.  She showed the dark places on the birch-bark where the blood had stained it, and she said the skull of the animal, with its one horn sawed off, was over among the relics in her aunt’s home.

“My Aunt Maria was accounted a very good-looking woman in her day, and there were those that thought she might have taken a second husband, if the sailor had been so disposed.  He was so brave and so honest, bringing all that money from my uncle, the sea-captain, when goodness knows, he might have run off with every cent of it, and nobody been any the wiser!”

At this grandfather gave a loud exclamation and stood up, shaking his head as if he had the ague.  He just couldn’t believe his ears, he said.

“No!  No! No!  It can’t be the same!” he said over and over.  “Why, he said it happened in Kennettown.”

“Well, now!” said Mrs. Hamilton, surprised.  “Where did you ever get hold of that old name?  I didn’t suppose a soul but some of our old folks remembered that.  Why, Newtonville wasn’t named that but six months.  Folks got mad at the Kennetts for being so highfalutin’ over having the town named after them, and so ’twas changed back.”

Grandfather said he’d no notion of another word she said after that.  When he went back to his room, he found a letter from home, telling him all the news, and mentioning, among other things, that old Jedediah Chillingworth wasn’t expected to live much longer.  Age had withered the little old man until there wasn’t enough of him left to go on living.  Grandfather usually reached this part of the story just as we arrived under the big maples that stand on each side of the cemetery gate, and always stopped short to say solemnly: 

“Thank the Lord!  I’ve two things to my credit.  I never waited one minute to start back to Hillsboro, and from that time on I wanted to do what was right by the old man, even if it did turn out so different.”

Then we went on into the cemetery, and paced slowly along the winding paths as he continued: 

“I got to Hillsboro late one night, and I’d ’most killed my horse to do it.  They said Jedediah was still alive, but wasn’t expected to last till morning.  I went right up to his little old shack, without waiting to see my folks or to get a mouthful to eat.  A whole lot of the neighbors had come in to watch with him, and even then, with the old dizzard actually dying, they were making a fool of him.

“He was half propped up in bed—­he wasn’t bigger than my fist by that time—­with red spots in his cheeks, and his eyes like glass, and he was just ending up that moose story.  The folks were laughing and winking and nudging one another in the ribs, just the way I used to.  I was done up with my long, hard ride, and some nervous, I guess, for it fair turned my stomach to see them.