uin' agony. When the Dick Dasher had pulled out without her, final, I
judged they'd be easier to manage. An' that evenin' I told Elspie--just
to sort o' clamp myself _to_ myself; an' I fair never see anybody so
happy as she was. It made me ashamed o' myself for not doin' different
everything I done.

"I was up early that Friday mornin', because I judged't when Elspie
wasn't to the train some o' them in charge'd come tearin' to my house to
find out why. I hadn't called Elspie, an' I s'posed she was asleep in
the other bedroom. I was washin' up my breakfast dishes quiet, so's not
to disturb her, when I heard somebody come on to the front stoop like
they'd been sent for.

"'There,' thinks I, 'just as I expected. It's one o' the managers.'

"But it wa'n't a manager. When I'd got to the front door, lo an' the
hold! there standin' on the steps, wild an' white, was the widow o' the
day before's funeral--Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, lookin' like the grave
_hed_ spoke up. She'd got up early to go alone to the cemetery, an', my
house bein' the nearest, she'd come rushin' back to me with her news.

"'Cally!' s'she, from almost before she laid eyes on me, 'Cally!
Somebody's stole every last one o' the flowers off'n Sum's grave. _An'_
the ribbins.'

"She was fair beside herself, bein' as the loss hed piled up on a long
sickness o' Sum's, an' a big doctor's bill consequent, an' she nervous
anyhow, an' a good deal o' the ribbin tyin' the stems was silk, both
sides.

"'I'll hev out the marshal,' s'she, wild. 'I'll send for Timothy. They
can't hev got far with 'em. I'll know,' s'she, defiant, 'whether they's
anything to the law or whether they ain't.'

"I hed her take some strong coffee from breakfast, an' I got her, after
some more fumin's an' fustin's, to walk back to the cemetery with me,
till we give a look around. I do as many quick-moved things as some, but
I allus try, _first_, to give a look around.

"'An' another thing,' s'I to her, as we set out, 'are you sure, Mis'
Fire Chief, that you got to the right grave? The first visit, so,' I
says, 'an' not bein' accustomed to bein' a widow, lately, an' all, you
might 'a' got mixed in the lots.'

"While she was disclaimin' this I looked up an' see, hangin' round the
road, was Eb. He seemed some sheepish when he see me, an' he said,
hasty, that he'd just got there, an' it come over me like a flash't he'd
come to see Elspie off. An' I marched a-past him without hardly a word.

"