Back in Hillsboro, Lem now began life all over again, hiring out humbly to his neighbors and only stipulating that he should have enough free time to take care of his mother.  Three weeks ago she had her last stroke of paralysis and, after lying speechless for a few days, passed away, grim to the last, by the expression in her fierce old eyes.

The day after her funeral Lem did not come to work as he was expected.  We went over to his house and found, to our consternation, that he was not out of bed.

“Be ye sick, Lem?” asked my uncle.

He looked at us over the bedclothes with his old foolish, apologetic smile.  “Kind o’ lazy, I guess,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

The doctor was put out by the irregularity of the case.

“I can’t make out anything really the trouble!” he said.  “Only the wheels don’t go round as fast as they ought.  Call it failing heart action if you want a label.”

The wheels ran more and more slowly until it was apparent to all of us that before long they would stop altogether.  Susie and Bronson were in New York with little Frank, so that Lem’s care during his last days devolved on the haphazard services of the neighbors.  He was out of his head most of the time, though never violent, and all through the long nights lay flat on his back, looking at the ceiling with bright, blank eyes, driving his ox-team, skidding logs, plowing in stony ground and remembering to favor the off-horse whose wind wasn’t good, planting, hoeing, tending his sheep, and teaching obstinate lambs to drink.  He used quaint, coaxing names for these, such as a mother uses for her baby.  He was up in the mountain-pasture a good deal, we gathered, and at night, from his constant mention of how bright the stars shone.  And sometimes, when he was in evident pain, his delusion took the form that Susie, or the little boys, had gone up with him, and got lost in the woods.

I was on duty the night he died.  We thought a change was near, because he had lain silent all day, and we hoped he would come to himself when he awoke from this stupor.  Near midnight he began to talk again, and I could not make out at first whether he was still wandering or not.  “Hold on hard, Uncle Hi,” I heard him whisper.

A spoon fell out of my hand and clattered against a plate.  He gave a great start and tried to sit up.  “Yes, mother—­coming!” he called hoarsely, and then looked at me with his own eyes.  “I must ha’ forgot about mother’s bein’ gone,” he apologized sheepishly.

I took advantage of this lucid interval to try to give him some medicine the doctor had left.  “Take a swallow of this,” I said, holding the glass to his lips.

“What’s it for?” he asked.

“It’s a heart stimulant,” I explained.  “The doctor said if we could get you through to-night you have a good chance.”

His face drew together in grotesque lines of anxiety.  “Little Frank worse?”