rstood't she hadn't ben crazy at all up to the time her
mother died. Then she hadn't no one to go to an' she got queer, an' the
poorhouse uncle stepped in; an' when he died, he died in debt, so his
death wa'n't no use to her. She was thirty odd, but awful little an'
slim an' scairt-lookin', an' quite pretty, I allus thought; an' I never
see a thing wrong with her till she was so unconcerned about the fire.

"'Elspie,' s'I, stern, 'ain't you no feelin',' s'I, 'for the loss o' the
only home you've got to your back?'

"'Oh, I donno,' s'she, an' I could see her smilin' in that bright light,
'oh, I donno. It'll be some place to come to, afterwards. When I go out
walkin',' s'she, 'I ain't no place to head for. I sort o' circle 'round
an' come back. I ain't even a grave to visit,' s'she, 'an' it'll be kind
o' cosey to come up here on the hill an' set down by the ashes--like
they _belonged_.'

"I know I heard Eb Goodnight laugh, kind o' cracked an' enjoyable, an' I
took some shame to him for makin' fun o' the poor girl.

"'She's goin' clear out o' her head,' thinks I, 'an' you'd better get
her home with you, short off.' So I put my arm around her, persuadish,
an' I says: 'Elspie,' I says, 'you come on to my house now for a spell,'
I says. But Eb, he steps in, prompter'n I ever knew him--I'd never heard
him do a thing decisive an' sudden excep' sneeze, an' them he always
done his best to swallow. 'I'll take her to your house,' he says to me;
'you go on up there to them women. I won't be no use up there,' he says.
An' that was reasonable enough, on account o' Eb not bein' the decisive
kind, for fires an' such.

"So Eb he went off, takin' Elspie to my house, an' I went on up the
hill, where Timothy Toplady and Silas Sykes an' Eppleby was rushin'
round, wild an' sudden, herdin' the inmates here an' there, vague an'
energetic. I didn't do much better, an' I done worse too, because I
burned my left wrist, long an' deep. When I got home with it, Eb was
settin' on the front stoop with Elspie, an' when he heard about the
wrist, he come in an' done the lightin' up. An' Elspie, she fair
su'prised me.

"'Where do you keep your rags?' s'she, brisk.

"'In that flour chest I don't use,' I says, 'in the shed.'

"My land! she was back in a minute with a soft piece o' linen an' the
black oil off the clock shelf that I hadn't told her where it was, an'
she bound up my wrist like she'd created that burn an' understood it up
an' down.

"