othin'," she continued; "and it's sech poor work a breathin', he's most
give that up, too. It might stop any minute and he not know it. Cinthy's
cryin'; I don't see nothin' to cry about. It'll storm before to-morrow,
likely--it's dark enough, Lord knows--and them east winds always hurt him
so. 'I don't know whether he's worse off, or better off, Cinthy,' says I,
'or whether he's off entirety. But I don't believe a righteous God'll
make poor 'Lihu suffer any worse than he has in the last ten weeks.' But
it's strange, all the time I was a' sittin' there by him, when he was
worst, it kept comin' up before me, jest as he was when he was a little
boy. I hadn't thought on him so for years, but it seemed jest as though
'twas back in New Hampshire, where we was born, a' playin' around the old
mill again. Him and me was the youngest, we was always together, and I
couldn't 'a' called him up so before me, to save me; but there he was, as
plain as life, with his little blue checked apron on, a skippin' along
towards me over the logs, and his eyes a dancin', and the wind a blowin'
his hair out; and all the while I couldn't help a knowin' that 'Lihu was
a man grown, a dyin' there before me on the bed.

"'Seems as though a man that's been a wearin' out as long as he has had
ought to die easier, Cinthy,' says I. 'It's pretty hard to have forty
years' consumption, and then go off with a fever,' 'We can't question the
Lord's doin's,' says Cinthy. But for all that, she wouldn't stay in the
room to see him. He couldn't ketch his breath and he was as crazy as a
loon. Lord, how he worried! All day, yesterday, he was a loadin' ship
down to the shore. It would a' made your bones ache to hear him workin'
so; and all night long he was a loadin', and a loadin.' Thinks I, won't
there never be no end to this, for I felt hard, and him a loadin' and a
loadin' all through them long hours, jest as faithful as life, with his
eyes like blood, and the sweat a rollin' off'n him. He couldn't stand
that forever. This mornin' the pain sorter left him, but there was that
one idee on his mind. The ship was all loaded, and he'd got to wait for
high tide to git it off, and he wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn't,
because he'd got to watch the tide.

"'Oh, if I could only rest, now,' he kep' a savin', weak and slow. 'If I
could only go to sleep now;' and so he moaned and moaned.

"So I got close to his ear and I says, 'You go to sleep, now, 'Lihu, and
I'll watc