I knew suthin' was walkin' towards me over the lot. I kep' my eyes on
the sky; for I knew 'twould break suthin' if I turned my head, an' I
felt as if I couldn't bear to. An' It come walkin', walkin', without
takin' any steps or makin' any noise, till It come right up 'side o' me
an' stood still. I didn't turn round. I knew I mustn't. I dunno whether
It touched me; I dunno whether It said anything--but I know It made me a
new creatur'. I knew then I shouldn't be afraid o' things no more--nor
sorry. I found out 't was all right. 'I'm glad I'm alive,' I said. 'I'm
thankful!' Seemed to me I'd been dead for the last twenty year. I'd come
alive.

"An' so I set there an' held my breath, for fear 'twould go. I dunno how
long, but the moon riz up over my left shoulder, an' the sky begun to
fade. An' then it come over me 'twas goin'. I knew 'twas terrible tender
of me, an' sorry, an' lovin', an' so I says, 'Don't you mind; I won't
forgit!' An' then It went. But that broke suthin', an' I turned an' see
my own shadder on the grass; an' I thought I see another, 'side of it.
Somehow that scairt me, an' I jumped up an' whipped it home without
lookin' behind me. Now that's my experience," said Hannah Prime, looking
her neighbors again in the face, with dauntless eyes. "I dunno what
'twas, but it's goin' to last. I ain't afraid no more, an' I ain't goin'
to be. There ain't nuthin' to worry about. Everything's bigger'n we
think." She folded her shawl more closely about her and moved toward the
door. There she again turned to her neighbors.

"Good-night!" she said, and was gone.

They sat quite still until the tread of her feet had ceased its beating
on the dusty road. Then, by one consent, they rose and moved slowly out.
There was no prayer that night, and "Lord dismiss us" was not sung.

HONEY AND MYRRH

The neighborhood, the township, and the world had been snowed in. Snow
drifted the road in hills and hollows, and hung in little eddying
wreaths, where the wind took it, on the pasture slopes. It made solid
banks in the dooryards, and buried the stone walls out of sight. The
lacework of its fantasy became daintily apparent in the conceits with
which it broidered over all the common objects familiar in homely lives.
The pump, in yards where that had supplanted the old-fashioned curb,
wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted over,
and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a fluffy
pe