eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by
herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own
roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it
to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by
the hand, hard, and says:

"_Good_-by. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if
I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you, and I'll think
of you a many and a many a time, and I'll _pray_ for you, too!"--and
she was gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was
more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was
just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the
notion--there warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what
you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl
I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like
flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and
goodness, too--she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since
that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen
her since, but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a
million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever
I'd 'a' thought it would do any good for me to pray for _her_, blamed
if I wouldn't 'a' done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see
her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that
you all goes to see sometimes?"

They says:

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she
told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of
them's sick."

"Which one?"

"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--"

"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't _Hanner?_"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one."

"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary
Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?"

I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I
says:

"Mumps."

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the
mumps."

"They don't, don't they? You bett