l, and I must scold you some for crying so much, and
shake the baby some in the kitchen for making a noise, because, you
know, the baby can walk and talk, and is me, only I can't be both at a
time.'

She was not very clear in her explanations, but Arthur began to have a
dim perception of her meaning, and did what she bade him do, and rather
enjoyed having his face and hands washed with a wet rag, and his hair
brushed and _turled_, as she called it, even though the fingers which
_turled_ it sometimes made suspicious journeyings to her mouth. He cried
when she told him to cry; he coughed when she told him to cough; he
kissed the baby when she told him to kiss it; he took medicine from the
tin pail in the form of the cherry juice left there, and did not have to
make believe that it sickened him, as she said he must, for that was a
reality. But when she told him he must die, but pray first, he demurred,
and asked what he should say. Jerry hesitated a little. She knew that
her prayers were 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' but it seemed to her
that a person dying should say something else, and at last she replied:

'I can't think what she did say, only a lot about _him_. There was a
_him_ somewhere, and I guess he was naughty, so pray for _him_, and the
baby--that's me--and tell Manny she must take me to Mecky,'

'To whom?' Arthur asked, and she replied:

'To Mecky, where he was, don't you know?'

Arthur did not know, but he prayed for _him_, saying what she bade him
say--a mixture half English, half German.

'There now, you are dead,' she said at last, as she closed his eyes and
folded his hand upon his chest, 'You are dead, and mustn't stir nor
breathe, no matter how awful we cry, Man-nee and I.'

Kneeling down beside him, she began to cry so like that of two persons
that if Arthur had not known to the contrary, he would have sworn there
were two beside him, a woman and a child, the voice of the one shrill
and clear, and young, and frightened, the other older, and harsher, and
stronger, and both blending together in a most astonishing manner.

'With a little practice she would make a wonderful ventriloquist,'
Arthur thought, as he watched her flitting about the room, talking to
unseen people and giving orders with regard to himself.

Once Frank had witnessed a pantomine very similar to this, only then the
play had ended with the death, while now there was the burial, and when
Arthur moved a little and asked if he