, an incandescence that he managed from somewhere within,
silenced me. I never meddled with the coals on William's altar. And
not long after the shriving of the infidel I had an unexpected
opportunity to observe how easy he made it for his people to "die in
the faith."

We were living a perfectly human day among the roses and sagebushes and
bumblebees in our little garden when word came that Mrs. Salter had
been suddenly stricken and was about to die "without the witness of the
Spirit." There was a row of dahlias behind the blue-belled sagebushes
requiring attention, and we had been so normally earth-happy digging
about their roots. William had been so like other young men in his
digressions that I could not help being depressed at the interruption.
It seemed that some shadow of the other world was forever falling
between us.

We came up out of our garden; William harnessed his horse, put on his
longest-tailed black coat, changed his expression, and we drove away on
our sad mission. For custom required that the pastor's wife should
accompany him upon such occasions. Her care was to look after the
stricken surviving members of the family while he gave his attention
more particularly to the passing one. She must be ready to do anything
from cooking the next meal to shrouding the corpse. The latter is a
particularly garrulous business, and I was horrified to discover that
it was so gruesomely entertaining to the women of the church and
neighbors who helped. My first corpse was the young wife of a farmer,
who had died of "the fever," as usual. Sister Fleming and Sister Glory
White had helped me "lay her out." And each vied with the other as to
the number and condition of the bodies they had prepared for burial,
incidentally comparing points between them and the present one. The
grand dignity of the dead woman's face did not appall them, but it
frightened me.

"O Sister White," I whispered, trembling and covering my eyes from the
sight of them cackling about the awfully disheveled bed and its burden,
"don't talk so before her. She looks so much above us!"

"Lor', child, you'll git used to it. They all have it, that grand
look, when they air dead. It don't mean nothin'. Once I 'laid out' a
bad woman; there wasn't another person in the settlement that would
touch her, so I done it, and of all the corpses I ever put away she had
the grandest look. It sorter staggered me till I thought at last it
was maybe