r opened as I run up
the stoop, an' I see by her face that I was too late. 'Oh, David,
David!' she says (she'd never called me David before), puttin' her hands
on my shoulders.

"'When?' I says.

"''Bout midnight,' she says.

"'Did he suffer much?' I says.

"'No,' she says, 'I don't think so; but he was out of his head most of
the time after the fust day, an' I guess all the time the last
twenty-four hours.'

"'Do you think he'd 'a' knowed me?' I says. 'Did he say anythin'?' an'
at that," said David, "she looked at me. She wa'n't cryin' when I come
in, though she had ben; but at that her face all broke up. 'I don't
know,' she says. 'He kept sayin' things, an' 'bout all we could
understand was "Daddy, daddy,"' an' then she throwed her apern over her
face, an'----"

David tipped his hat a little farther over his eyes, though, like many
if not most "horsey" men, he usually wore it rather far down, and
leaning over, twirled the whip in the socket between his two fingers and
thumb. John studied the stitched ornamentation of the dashboard until
the reins were pushed into his hands. But it was not for long. David
straightened himself, and, without turning his head, resumed them as if
that were a matter of course.

"Day after the fun'ral," he went on, "I says to Mis' Jones, 'I'm goin'
back out West,' I says, 'an' I can't say how long I shall be gone--long
enough, anyway,' I says, 'to git it into my head that when I come back
the' won't be no little feller to jump up an' 'round my neck when I come
into the house; but, long or short, I'll come back some time, an'
meanwhile, as fur 's things between you an' me air, they're to go on
jest the same, an' more 'n that, do you think you'll remember him some?'
I says.

"'As long as I live,' she says, 'jest like my own.'

"'Wa'al,' I says, 'long 's you remember him, he'll be, in a way, livin'
to ye, an' as long 's that I allow to pay fer his keep an' tendin' jest
the same as I have, _an'_,' I says, 'if you don't let me you ain't no
friend o' mine, an' you _ben_ a _good_ one.' Wa'al, she squimmidged
some, but I wouldn't let her say 'No.' 'I've 'ranged it all with my
pardner an' other ways,' I says, 'an' more 'n that, if you git into any
kind of a scrape an' I don't happen to be got at, you go to him an' git
what you want.'"

"I hope she lived and prospered," said John fervently.

"She lived twenty year," said David, "an' I wish she was livin' now. I
never drawed a check on