sold whilst I'm alive," he assured him, with a stern nod, as he
combed out his forelock, and the animal looked at him again, with
that strange attention which is so much like the attention of
understanding.

After his tasks in the barn were done Jerome went out to the sloping
garden and finished planting the beans. He could see Elmira's smooth
dark head passing to and fro before the house windows, and knew that
she was fulfilling his instructions.

He kept a sharp watch upon the road for other female friends of his
mother's, who, he was resolved, should not enter.

"Them women will only get her all stirred up again. She's got to get
used to it, and they'll just hinder her," he said, quite aloud to
himself, having in some strange fashion discovered the truth that the
human mind must adjust itself to its true balance after the upheaval
of sorrow.

After the beans were planted it was only nine o'clock. Jerome went
soberly down the garden-slope, stepping carefully between the planted
ridges, then into the house, with a noiseless lift of the latch and
glide over the threshold; for Elmira signalled him from the window to
be still.

His mother sat in her high-backed rocker, fast asleep, her sharp eyes
closed, her thin mouth gaping, an expression of vacuous peace over
her whole face, and all her wiry little body relaxed. Jerome motioned
to Elmira, and the two tiptoed out across the little front entry to
the parlor.

"How long has she been asleep?" whispered Jerome.

"'Most an hour. You don't s'pose mother's goin' to die too, do you,
Jerome?"

"Course she ain't."

"I never saw her go to sleep in the daytime before. Mother don't act
a mite like herself. She 'ain't spoke out to me once this mornin',"
poor little Elmira whimpered; but her brother hushed her, angrily.

"Don't you know enough to keep still--a great big girl like you?" he
said.

"Jerome, I have. I 'ain't cried a mite before her, and she couldn't
hear that," whispered Elmira, chokingly.

"Mother's got awful sharp ears, you know she has," insisted Jerome.
"Now I'm goin' away, and don't you let anybody come in here while I'm
gone and bother mother."

"I'll have to let Cousin Paulina Maria and Aunt Belinda in, if they
come," said Elmira, staring at him wonderingly. Neither she nor her
mother knew that Paulina Maria had already been there and been turned
away.

"You just lock the house up, and not go to the door," said Jerome,
decisively.

Elmira k