was dead. He'd been in about an hour before we got him.

[Illustration: I Brought Heine Up]

Just then the miller came up and saw what had happened. He went and got
his wagon and put Heine's body in it, and we all drove into town; and
finally to Heine's house, where his mother fainted and cried so you
could hear her all over town.

Then Mitch and me started for home. Mitch was awful solemn and said,
"That might have been you or me, Skeet. What does it mean, anyway?
Here's Heine just growin' up, just been around this town with us boys a
few years, and now he's drowned and gone for good. Why, I can remember
when he wore short dresses, and now it's all over, and it looks like
life is just nuthin'."

Then, after a bit, he said, "I have a presentiment."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Why, it's when you know somethin' is goin' to happen."

"Do you mean somethin' 's goin' to happen, to you or me, Mitch?"

"Well, nothin' like drownin' or dyin'," said Mitch. "I don't get it that
way. But I just feel we'll never dig any more at Old Salem."

"But we ain't finished there," says I.

"That may be," he says, "but to-morrow is Sunday, and I've always
noticed that the next week after Sunday ain't the same."

We got to my gate now, and Mitch hardly said "good-by"--just went on
lookin' down at the ground. I watched him till he got up the hill and up
to Tom White's, then I turned in.

CHAPTER XI

Sunday School bothered me terribly, for a lot of reasons. I had to dress
up, for one thing, and in the summer time ma made me wear linen suits,
which was starched stiff by Delia, our girl. They had sharp edges which
scratched. And my hat was too small, and my shoes hurt. And the inside
of the church smelt like stale coffee grounds, and the teacher looked
hungry and kept parting her lips with a sound as if she was gettin'
ready to eat, or wanted to, and she trickled inside like the sound of
water or somethin'. Besides, there was no end to the Bible stories and
the golden texts.

Mitch and the Miller girls went just as if it was the thing to do, and
they didn't seem to mind it. It was a part of their life. But it was a
little different with Mitch after all, for sometimes he didn't go. He
went mostly, but he stayed away if he wanted to read, and his pa let him
alone. Mr. Miller was the best man you ever saw, and everybody loved
him.

It was this way with us children, ma made us go and pa said nothin'
about it unless she asked