it. I scarcely ever saw a man so
wild with thankfulness. And the next day I hired a team and went over
after him, and I took care of him to the end."

Here was a heavy dash. Raven could imagine Old Crow's drawing the line
with one impatient stroke because he had got so far in a story he could
ill stop to write, but that had to be written. Raven had forgotten Tira
up there in the lonesome woods, forgotten a day was very near when she
would have to make one more of her desperate decisions. He was thinking
of Old Crow.

XXIII

He went on reading:

"There is no need of going into old Billy's sickness. It made a great
change in my life. As soon as it got about that I had taken him to live
with me, folks began to say I was queer, the same as they did before,
and the children would hoot and run. He was known to be so bad (they had
always called him bad; they never once thought God made him) they
thought I liked to keep company with him because I must be bad, too. And
I could not go about any more doing for people because I was doing for
him and there was no time. But people kept sending for me, and when they
saw old Billy Jones sitting there with his bandaged legs, they would
feel hard toward me. They said I would rather do for him than for them,
and he ought, by rights, to be on the town. That meant his going to the
Farm. Sometimes I thought they felt so about it there might be action
taken to get him there--to the Poor Farm. He never thought of this, I am
sure. He had a peaceful time, as much so as a man could have that has
killed his body and begins to be afraid he has killed his soul. That was
the hardest time I had with him: about his soul. He was afraid to die. I
told him God made him and would see to him in the end, and that He well
knew he did not mean to kill Cyrus Graves. He said that was true, but if
he had been tried here in a court of law the jury would have pronounced
him guilty and it was very likely God would. And there was hell. These
things I could not answer because I did not know, and if I had any
convictions they were as dark as his, though of another sort. But I did
try to put heart into him, and I hoped the end would come before he
suffered any more.

"I want the boy to know that all this time his mother was a very great
comfort to me. Of course she could not let the boy come up to the hut,
because old Billy Jones was too dreadful a sight for a child to see. But
she cooked a great many deli