fever an' all....

"Six head o' young ones we'd had, me an' him. An' they'd all dropped
off. Come spring, an' one'd be gone. I kep' a-comfortin' that man best
I could they was better off, angels not bein' pindlin' an' hungry an'
barefoot, an' thanks be, they ain't no mills in heaven. But their pa
he couldn't see it thataway nohow. He was turrible sot on them
children, like us pore folks gen'rally is. They was reel fine-lookin'
at first.

"When all the rest of 'em had went, her pa he sort o' sot his heart on
Louisa here. 'For we ain't got nothin' else, ma,' says he. 'An' please
the good Lord, we're a-goin' to give this one book-learnin' an' sich,
an' so be she'll miss them mills,' he says. 'Ma, less us aim to make a
lady o' our Louisa. Not that the Lord ain't done it a'ready,' says her
pa, 'but we got to he'p Him keep on an' finish the job thorough.' An'
here's him an' her both gone, an' me without a God's soul belongin' to
me this day! My God, Mr. Flint, ain't it something turrible the things
happens to us pore folks?"

The Butterfly Man looked from her to Westmoreland and me: doctor of
bodies, doctor of souls, naturalist, what had we to say to this woman
stripped of all? But she, with the greater wisdom of the poor, spoke
for herself and for us. A sort of veiled light crept into her sodden
face.

"It ain't I ain't grateful to you-all," said she. "God knows I be. You
was good to Louisa. Doctor, you remember that day you give her a ride
in your ottermobile an' forgot to bring her home for more 'n a hour?
My, but that child was happy!"

"'Ma,' says she when I come home that night, 'you know what heaven
is?'

"'Child,' says I, 'folks like me mostly knows what it ain't.'

"'I beat you, ma!' says she, clappin' her hands. 'Heaven ain't nothin'
much but country an' roads an' trees an' butterflies, an' things like
that,' says she. 'An' God's got ottermobiles, plenty an' plenty
ottermobiles, an' you ride free in 'em long's you feel like it, 'cause
that's what they's _for_. An', ma,' says she, 'God's, showfers is all
of 'em Dr. Westmorelands and Mr. Flints.' Yea, suh, you-all been
mighty kind to Louisa. But I reckon," she drawled, "it was Mr. Flint
Louisa loved best, him bein' a childern's kind o' man, an' on account
o' Loujaney." She laid a hand upon the rag doll lying on the little
girl's arm.

"From the first day you give her that doll, Mr. Flint--which she named
Loujaney, for her an' me both--that child ain't been