hout it was sweetbriers. Then she asked
me if I knew what palms was; and she said when she was dead she wanted
me to have her little pink chany box that Miss Maria Elliot give her
once, when she bought some blueberries of her. So then she dozed a
little while; and I don't know why, but I couldn't get asleep for a good
while, for all I'd worked real hard that day. I guess 'twas as much as
an hour she laid kind of still; she never did sleep real sound, so but
what she moaned and talked broken now and then. So by and by she give a
start, and says she, 'I'm all ready.' 'Ready for what, Jinny,' says I.
But she didn't seem to know as I was talking to her. Says she, 'I'm all
ready. I've got on a white gown and a palm in my hand.' So then I knew
she was wandering like, as I'd heard say folks did when they was very
sick; for she hadn't any gown at all on, without you might call Mrs.
Whitmarsh's old faded calico sack one, nor nothing in her hand neither.
So pretty soon she dropped to sleep again, and I did too. And I slept
later 'n common. The sun was shining right into my eyes when I opened
'em. I thought 't would trouble Jinny, and I was just going to pin her
skirt up to the window, and I see that she looked awful white. I put my
hand on her forehead, and it was just as cold as a stone. So then I knew
she was dead. I never see her look so happy like. She had the
pleasantest smile on her lips ever you see. I didn't know as Mrs. Kemp'd
like to have me stay, but I just brushed her hair,--'t was real pretty
hair, just a little mite curly,--and then I run home and told Mrs. Kemp.
She said she'd just as lives I'd stay over to Mrs. Whitmarsh's as not
that day, 'cause she was going over to Woodstock shopping. So I went
back again, and Mrs. Whitmarsh she sent me to one of the selectmen to
see if she'd got to be to the expense of the funeral, 'cause she said it
didn't seem right, seeing she never got much work out of Jinny, she was
always so weakly. And Mr. Robbins he said the town would pay for the
coffin and digging the grave. That made her real pleasant; and I don't
know what put me up to it, but I was real set on it that Jinny should
have on a white gown in the coffin. And I asked Mrs. Whitmarsh if I
mightn't go over to Miss Bradford's; and she let me, and Miss Bradford
give me an old white gown, if I'd iron it; and Polly Wheelock, she was
Miss Bradford's girl, she helped me put it on to Jinny. And then Polly
got some white lilies, and