“It took her all day to dig it, she said.  They was afraid of wolves in them days and had to have their graves deep.  The baby, the one that was to be my grandfather, played ‘round while she was diggin’, and she had to stop to milk the cow and git his meals for him.  She got the bodies over to the grave, one at a time, draggin’ ’em on the wood-sled.  When she was ready to shovel the dirt back in, ‘twas gettin’ to be twilight, and she said the thrushes were beginnin’ to sing—­she made the baby kneel down and she got on her knees beside him and took hold of his hand to say a prayer.  She was just about wore out, as you can think, and scared to death, and she’d never known any prayer, anyhow.  All she could think to say was ‘Lord—­Lord—­Lord!’ And she made the baby say it, over and over.  I guess ’twas a good enough prayer too.  When I married and come up here to live, seems as though I never heard the thrushes begin to sing in the evening without I looked down there and could almost see them two on their knees.

“Well, there she was, fourteen years old, with a two-year-old baby to look out for, and all the rest of the family gone as though she’d dreamed ’em.  She was sure she and little Eddie—­you’re named for him, Eddie, and don’t you never forget it—­would die, of course, like the others, but she wa’n’t any hand to give up till she had to, and she wanted to die last, so to look out for the baby.  So when she took sick she fought the smallpox just like a wolf, she used to tell us.  She had to live, to take care of Eddie.  She gritted her teeth and wouldn’t die, though, as she always said, ‘twould ha’ been enough sight more comfortable than to live through what she did.

“Some folks nowadays say it couldn’t ha’ been smallpox she had, or she couldn’t ha’ managed.  I don’t know ’bout that.  I guess ’twas plenty bad enough, anyhow.  She was out of her head a good share of th’ time, but she never forgot to milk the cow and give Eddie his meals.  She used to fight up on her knees (there was a week when she couldn’t stand without fallin’ over in faint) and then crawl out to the cow-shed and sit down flat on the ground and reach up to milk.  One day the fever was so bad she was clear crazy and she thought angels in silver shoes come right out there, in the manure an’ all, and milked for her and held the cup to Eddie’s mouth.

“An’ one night she thought somebody, with a big black cape on, come and stood over her with a knife.  She riz up in bed and told him to ’git out!  She’d have to stay to take care of the baby!’ And she hit at the knife so fierce she knocked it right out’n his hand.  Then she fainted away agin.  She didn’t come to till mornin’, and when she woke up she knew she was goin’ to live.  She always said her hand was all bloody that morning from a big cut in it, and she used to show us the scar—­a big one ’twas, too.  But I guess most likely that come from something else.  Folks was awful superstitious in them days, and Aunt Debby was always kind o’ queer.