nice, dry lock-up and somethin' to eat wouldn't be so
bad, would it? But no constable but a web-footed one would be out this
night. Now do as I say--you lay still and give your nerves a rest."

For a few moments the order was obeyed. Then Miss Rowes said, with
another shiver: "I do believe this is the worst storm I have ever
experienced."

"'Tis pretty bad, that's a fact. Do you know, Emily, if I was a believer
in signs such as mentioned a little while ago, I might almost be tempted
to believe this storm was one of 'em. About every big change in my life
has had a storm mixed up with it, comin' at the time it happened or
just afore or just after. I was born, so my mother used to tell me, on a
stormy night about like this one. And it poured great guns the day I was
married. And Eben, my husband, went down with his vessel in a hurricane
off Hatteras. And when poor Jedediah run off to go gold-diggin' there
was such a snowstorm the next day that I expected to see him plowin' his
way home again. Poor old Jed! I wonder where he is tonight? Let's see;
six years ago, that was. I wonder if he's been frozen to death or eat up
by polar bears, or what. One thing's sartin, he ain't made his fortune
or he'd have come home to tell me of it. Last words he said to me was,
'I'm a-goin', no matter what you say. And when I come back, loaded down
with money, you'll be glad to see me.'"

Jedediah Cahoon was Mrs. Barnes' only near relative, a brother. Always a
visionary, easy-going, impractical little man, he had never been willing
to stick at steady employment, but was always chasing rainbows and
depending upon his sister for a home and means of existence. When
the Klondike gold fever struck the country he was one of the first to
succumb to the disease. And, after an argument--violent on his part
and determined on Thankful's--he had left South Middleboro and
gone--somewhere. From that somewhere he had never returned.

"Yes," mused Mrs. Barnes, "those were the last words he said to me."

"What did you say to him?" asked Emily, drowsily. She had heard the
story often enough, but she asked the question as an aid to keeping
awake.

"Hey? What did I say? Oh, I said my part, I guess. 'When you come back,'
says I, 'it'll be when I send money to you to pay your fare home, and I
shan't do it. I've sewed and washed and cooked for you ever since Eben
died, to say nothin' of goin' out nursin' and housekeepin' to earn money
to buy somethin' TO cook