There was an outbreak of delighted cries from the children and Mrs. Pritchard said deprecatingly, “You know, Abby, there never was children yet that wasn’t crazy ’bout old-timey stories.  I remember how I used to hang onto Aunt Debby’s skirts and beg her to tell me some more.

“The story I’m goin’ to tell you is about this Great-aunt Debby,” she announced formally to her auditors, “when she was ’bout fourteen years old and lived up here in this very house, pretty soon after th’ Rev’lution.  There was only just a field or two cleared off ’round it then, and all over th’ mounting the woods were as black as any cellar with pines and spruce.  Great-aunt Debby was the oldest one of five children and my grandfather—­your great-great-grandfather—­was the youngest.  In them days there wa’n’t but a few families in the valley and they lived far apart, so when Great-aunt Debby’s father got awful sick a few days after he’d been away to get some grist ground, Aunt Debby’s mother had to send her ’bout six miles through th’ woods to the nearest house—­it stood where the old Perkins barn is now.  The man come back with Debby, but as soon as he saw great-grandfather he give one yell—­’smallpox!’—­and lit out for home.  Folks was tur’ble afraid of it then an’ he had seven children of his own an’ nobody for ’em to look to if he died, so you couldn’t blame him none.  They was all like that then, every fam’ly just barely holdin’ on, an’ scratchin’ for dear life.

“Well, he spread the news, and the next day, while Debby was helpin’ her mother nurse her father the best she could, somebody called her over toward th’ woods.  They made her stand still ’bout three rods from ’em and shouted to her that the best they could do was to see that the fam’ly had vittles enough.  The neighbors would cook up a lot and leave it every day in the fence corner and Debbie could come and git it.

“That was the way they fixed it.  Aunt Debby said they was awful faithful and good ’bout it and never failed, rain or shine, to leave a lot of the best stuff they could git in them days.  But before long she left some of it there, to show they didn’t need so much, because they wasn’t so many to eat.

“First, Aunt Debby’s father died.  Her mother an she dug the grave in th’ corner of th’ clearin’, down there where I’m pointin’.  Aunt Debby said she couldn’t never forget how her mother looked as she said a prayer before they shoveled the dirt back in.  Then the two of ’em took care of the cow and tried to get in a few garden seeds while they nursed one of the children—­the boy that was next to Debby.  That turned out to be smallpox, of course, and he died and they buried him alongside his father.  Then the two youngest girls, twins they was, took sick, and before they died Aunt Debby’s mother fell over in a faint while she was tryin’ to spade up the garden.  Aunt Debby got her into the house and put her to bed.  She never said another thing, but just died without so much as knowin’ Debby.  She and the twins went the same day, and Debby buried ’em in one grave.