“No; where—­”

“He’s gone!”

“Gone?”

“Gone.  Mr. Weskin give him to understand as he’d better go somewhere ‘n’ he got on a train ‘n’ did it.  If he hadn’t, he might ‘a’ been lynched.”

“Lynched!” screamed the mother, sitting suddenly up.  A direful cracking resounded under the bed-clothes as she did so, but in the excitement of the moment its possible evil portent went unnoticed.

“Lynched,” repeated Susan; “that’s what I said, ‘n’ bein’ ’s I was brought up to speak the truth ‘n’ fear no man, you c’n depend upon its bein’ so.  But you must eat your breakfast, Mrs. Lathrop,—­you mustn’t go without eatin’ or you’ll lose your strength ‘n’ then blood poison ’ll set in.  ‘N’ that reminds me ’t Mr. Weskin asked me yesterday if you’d made your will.  Have you?”

“No; but I want to know about—­”

“He says you’d ought to right off.  He says there ‘s no tellin’ where anythin’ ’ll end ‘n’ it ’s wise to be prepared for the worst.  He said he knowed a man as walked on a tack ‘n’ jus’ called it a tack, ‘n’ first they had to cut off the tack ‘n’ then the toe ‘n’ then the foot, ‘n’ they kept on slicin’ him higher ‘n’ higher till he died without no will a tall.  I said you wasn’t no tack but a cow, but he said it was all one, ‘n’ I guess it is ’s far ’s the lawyers go.  I expeck it’d be only a poor lawyer ‘s couldn’t argue a tack into a cow—­’n’ out of her again, too, f’r that matter—­’n’ Mr. Weskin ain’t no poor—­”

“But about Ja—­”

“—­Lawyer.  He’s ’s fine ‘s they make.  O’ course a good deal o’ the time no one knows what he means, but that ain’t nothin’ ag’in’ him, f’r I think with a lawyer you ginerally don’t.  It’s a part o’ their business not to let no one know what they mean, f’r ’f law was simple no one ’d ever get fooled.”

‘N’ Jath—­”

“He’s gone.  You c’n make your mind easy about him, f’r he got away all safe.  Hiram Mullins chased him clear to the station ‘n’ nigh to catched him, but there was a train jus’ movin’ out, ‘n’ Jathrop shinned up the little fire-escape on the back o’ the calaboose ‘n’ was off.  ‘N’ now ‘t he is gone, Mrs. Lathrop, I’m goin’ to right out plain ‘n’ tell you to your face ’s it’s a good thing f’r you ’s he is gone, ‘n’ you want to thank Heaven ’s sent him to you ’t that train was so handy to take him away ag’in.”

“But what—­” asked Mrs. Lathrop feebly.

“It was the cow,” said Susan.  “Don’t you remember how I run last night?  I hear a noise, ‘n’ my first thought was ’s it was Jathrop or mebbe the butcher, but I got to the window jus’ in time to see a tail make the turn o’ the gate, ‘n’ the seein’ the tail showed right off ’s it warn’t Jathrop nor yet the butcher.  Seems ‘t Jathrop, not seein’ no ring to tie her to, tied her to a spoke in the hay-rack ‘n’ in her mooin’ she broke it.  Seems’t then she squose out into the chicken-coop ‘n’ then busted right through the wire nettin’ ‘n’