ame
racing across the plough ridges. "Come quick! Come quick!" he gasped.
"They've sent me--Doctor Prescott's ain't to home--he's most dead!
Come quick!"

"Where to?" shouted Jerome, pulling the tackle off the horse.

"Come quick, J'rome!"

"Where _to?_"

"Speak up, can't ye?" cried Ozias, shaking the boy by his small
shoulder.

"To Basset's!" screamed the boy, shrilly, jerked away from Ozias, and
was off, clearing the ground like a hound, with long leaps.

"Lord," said Ozias, looking at the deed, "it's killed him!"

Jerome had freed the horse from the plough, and now sprang upon his
back.

"Ye ain't goin' to ride him bare-back?" asked Ozias.

"I'm not going to stop for a saddle. G'long!" Jerome bent forward,
slapped the horse on the neck, dug his heels into his sides, and was
off at a gallop.

Ozias followed, still clutching the deed. Abel Edwards came out as he
reached the house. "Where's J'rome goin' to?" he asked.

"Down to Basset's; somethin's happened. He's fell dead or somethin'.
I'm goin' to see what the matter is."

"Wait till I git my hat, an' I'll go with ye."

The two old men went at a fast trot down the road, and many joined
them, all hurrying to Simon Basset's.

They had reached Lawyer Means's house, which stood in sight of
Basset's, before they met a returning company. "It's no use your
goin'," shouted a man in advance. "He's gone. J'rome Edwards said so
the minute he see him, an' now Doctor Prescott he's come, an' he says
so. He was dead before they cut him down."

With the throng of excited men and boys came one pale-faced, elderly
woman, with her cap awry and her apron over her shoulders. She was
Miss Rachel Blodgett, Eliphalet Means's house-keeper.

She took up her position by the Means's gate, and the crowd gathered
about her as a nucleus. Other women came running out of neighboring
houses, and pressed close to her skirts. Cyrus Robinson's son pushed
before her, and, when she began to speak in a strained treble,
overpowered it with a coarse volume of bass. "Let me tell what I've
got to first," he ordered, importantly. "My part comes first, then
it's your turn. I've got to go back to the store. It was just about
noon that Simon Basset come in ag'in and asked for a piece of rope.
Said he wanted it to tie his cow with. I got out some rope, and he
tried to beat me down on it; asked me if I hadn't got some
second-hand rope I'd let him have a piece of. Finally I got mad, and
asked h