of the storm.”—­Well, anyway, they’d be’n a-singin’ that hymn far her—­she used to sing that ’n so much, I ricollect as far back as I kin remember; and I mind how it used to make me feel so lonesome-like and solemn, don’t you know,—­when I’d be a-knockin’ round the place along of evenin’s, and she’d be a-milkin’, and I’d hear her, at my feedin’, way off by myse’f, and it allus somehow made me feel like a feller’d ort o’ try and live as nigh right as the law allows, and that’s about my doctern yit.  Well, as I was a-goin’ on to say, they’d jist finished that old hymn, and Granny Lowry was jist a-goin to lead in prayer, when I noticed mother kind o’ tried to turn herse’f in bed, and smiled so weak and faint-like, and looked at me, with her lips a-kind o’ movin’; and I thought maybe she wanted another dos’t of her syrup ’at Ezry’s woman had fixed up far her, and I kind o’ stooped down over her and ast her if she wanted anything.  “Yes,” she says, and nodded, and her voice sounded so low and solemn and so far away-like ’at I knowed she’d never take no more medicine on this airth.  And I tried to ast her what it was she wanted, but I couldn’t say nothin’; my throat hurt me, and I felt the warm tears a-boolgin’ up, and her kind old face a-glimmerin’ a-way so pale-like afore my eyes, and still a-smilin’ up so lovin’ and forgivin’ and so good ’at it made me think so far back in the past I seemed to be a little boy agin; and seemed like her thin gray hair was brown, and a-shinin’ in the sun as it used to do when she helt me on her shoulder in the open door, when Father was a-livin’ and we used to go to meet him at the bars; seemed like her face was young agin, and a-smilin’ like it allus used to be, and her eyes as full o’ hope and happiness as afore they ever looked on grief er ever shed a tear.  And I thought of all the trouble they had saw on my account, and of all the lovin’ words her lips had said, and of all the thousand things her pore old hands had done far me ’at I never even thanked her far; and how I loved her better ’n all the world besides, and would be so lonesome ef she went away—­Lord!  I can’t tell you what I didn’t think and feel and see.  And I knelt down by her, and she whispered then far Steven, and he come, and we kissed her—­and she died—­a smilin’ like a child—­jist like a child.

Well—­well!  ‘Pears like I’m allus a-runnin’ into somepin’ else.  I wisht I could tell a story ‘thout driftin’ off in matters ’at hain’t no livin’ thing to do with what I started out with.  I try to keep from thinkin’ of afflictions and the like, ’cause sich is bound to come to the best of us; but a feller’s ricollection will bring ’em up, and I reckon it’d ort ’o be er it wouldn’t be; and I’ve thought, sometimes, it was done may be to kind o’ admonish a feller, as the Good Book says, of how good a world ’d be ’thout no sorrow in it.