took
care of her little brother, same as she always had. And he grew up and got
married and come to live in this house and Aunt Debby lived with him.
They did set great store by each other! Grandmother used to laugh and say
grandfather and Aunt Debby didn't need no words to talk together. I was
eight, goin' on nine--why, Susie, just your age--when Aunt Debby died. I
remember as well the last thing she said. Somebody asked her if she was
afraid. She looked down over the covers--I can see her now, like a old
baby she looked, so little and so light on the big feather-bed, and she
said, 'Is a grain o' wheat scared when you drop it in the ground?' I
always thought that wa'n't such a bad thing for a child to hear said.

"She'd wanted to be buried there beside the others and grandfather did it
so. While he was alive he took care of the graves and kept 'em in good
order; and after I married and come here to live I did. But I'm gettin' on
now, and I want you young folks should know 'bout it and do it after I'm
gone.

"Now, here, Susie, take this pot of petunias and set it out on the head of
the grave that's got a stone over it. And if you're ever inclined to think
you have a hard time, just you remember Aunt Debby and shut your teeth and
_hang on_! If you tip the pot bottom-side up, and knock on it with a
stone, it'll all slip out easy. Now go along with you. We've got to be
starting for home soon."

There was a brief pause and then the cheerful voice went on: "If there's
any flower I do despise, it's petunias! But 'twas Aunt Debby's 'special
favorite, so I always start a pot real early and have it in blossom when
her birthday comes 'round."

By the sound she was struggling heavily to her feet. "Yes, do, for
goodness' sakes, haul me up, will ye? I'm as stiff as an old horse.
I don't know what makes me so rheumaticky. My folks ain't, as a
general thing."

There was so long a silence that the girl inside the house wondered if
they were gone, when Mrs. Pritchard's voice began again: "I do like to
come up here! It 'minds me of him an' me livin' here when we was young. We
had a good time of it!"

"I never could see," commented the other, "how you managed when he went
away t' th' war."

"Oh, I did the way you do when you _have_ to! I'd felt he ought to go, you
know, as much as he did, so I was willin' to put in my best licks. An' I
was young too--twenty-three--and only two of the children born then--and I
was as strong as a o