sed the name of Jesus Christ only to
swear by. He had heard, he told me, that Jesus Christ was the son of
God, and God sent Him here to save sinners, and, if sinners called on
Him to save them, they would be saved. And then he looked at me for a
minute with that same look, as if he hated me, and he said:

"'You don't believe it. You wouldn't let me suffer like this, if you
did.'

"And all my spirit broke up in me, and my legs were weak under me, and
the tears ran down on my face, and I said to him:

"'I do believe it.'

"'Will you swear it?' he asked me. He was very wild then. 'Will you
swear by Jesus Christ it is so?'

"'Yes,' I said, 'I will swear.'

"And I fell on my knees by the bed and said: 'Let us pray.' And I
prayed, in what words I don't know, but my hand was on his, and when I
said Amen, he said Amen, too, and when I looked at him all the trouble
was smoothed out of his face and he said, 'Jesus Christ!' as he never
could have said it in his life before. It was as if you were speaking to
your mother or your friend (yet not just a friend, but a heavenly
friend) and shortly he died. And I had told him a lie. But I was not
sorry. I was glad. What was my keeping my poor soul clean to old Billy
Jones's dying in peace? It was the last thing I could give him, and he
was welcome to it.

"It was in the early morning he died, and I did what I knew about making
him right for his coffin, and then went down to get one of the neighbors
that knew more, and all that day I was busy. The next day he would be
taken away and lie in the Methodist church at the Ridge, and the third
day he would be buried. And nobody had ever taken any interest in him
except to call him a poor good-for-nothing creature--nobody except your
mother (she is a good woman) but it looked as if he would have a
well-attended funeral. I was glad of that, for I knew he would be
pleased. He was laid out in the bedroom of the hut and the window was
open and the cold air blowing on him, and I lay down on the couch in the
large room. I didn't take my clothes off, for at such times it is
respectful to have watchers about the dead. It may not be necessary, but
it is the custom, and I wanted old Billy to have everything that was
fitting and right. I did not mean to go to sleep, but lie there a spell
and then get up and put on more wood and go into his cold room and let
him feel as if he was being taken care of to the last. And I lay there
thinking how I had h