e, then she lined them up on
the edge of the table. When she had made forty-eight dumplings, arranged
in dozens, one in front of the other, she began to think of preparing
supper, and she hung her kettle over the fire to cook potatoes, for she
judged it useless to heat the oven that day, as she had all the next day
in which to finish the preparations.

Her husband returned at about five. As soon as he had crossed the
threshold he asked:

"Is it over?"

She answered:

"Not yet; he's still gurglin'."

They went to look at him. The old man was in exactly the same condition.
His hoarse rattle, as regular as the ticking of a clock, was neither
quicker nor slower. It returned every second, the tone varying a little,
according as the air entered or left his chest.

His son-in-law looked at him and then said:

"He'll pass away without our noticin' it, just like a candle."

They returned to the kitchen and started to eat without saying a word.
When they had swallowed their soup, they ate another piece of bread and
butter. Then, as soon as the dishes were washed, they returned to the
dying man.

The woman, carrying a little lamp with a smoky wick, held it in front
of her father's face. If he had not been breathing, one would certainly
have thought him dead.

The couple's bed was hidden in a little recess at the other end of the
room. Silently they retired, put out the light, closed their eyes, and
soon two unequal snores, one deep and the other shriller, accompanied
the uninterrupted rattle of the dying man.

The rats ran about in the garret.

The husband awoke at the first streaks of dawn. His father-in-law was
still alive. He shook his wife, worried by the tenacity of the old man.

"Say, Phemie, he don't want to quit. What would you do?"

He knew that she gave good advice.

She answered:

"You needn't be afraid; he can't live through the day. And the mayor
won't stop our burying him to-morrow, because he allowed it for Maitre
Renard's father, who died just during the planting season."

He was convinced by this argument, and left for the fields.

His wife baked the dumplings and then attended to her housework.

At noon the old man was not dead. The people hired for the day's work
came by groups to look at him. Each one had his say. Then they left
again for the fields.

At six o'clock, when the work was over, the father was still breathing.
At last his son-in-law was frightened.

"What would you do now