eble as a baby:
'Don't let Uncle Jim sing at my funeral, Sam. I'll rise up out of my
coffin if he does.' And Sam broke out a-laughin' and a-cryin' at the
same time--he thought a heap o' Milly--and says he, 'Well, Milly, if
it'll have that effect, Uncle Jim shall sing at the funeral, sure.'
And Milly got to laughin', weak as she was, and in a few minutes she
dropped off to sleep, and when she woke up the fever was gone, and she
begun to git well from that day. I always believed that laugh was the
turnin'-p'int. Instead of Uncle Jim singin' at her funeral, she sung
at Uncle Jim's, and broke down and cried like a child for all the mean
things she'd said about the pore old creetur's voice."

The asparagus had been transferred to a china dish, and the browned
butter was ready to pour over it. The potatoes were steaming
themselves into mealy delicacy, and Aunt Jane peered into the stove
where the dumplings were taking on a golden brown. Her story-telling
evidently did not interfere with her culinary skill, and I said so.

"La, child," she replied, dashing a pinch of "seasonin" into the peas,
"when I git so old I can't do but one thing at a time, I'll try to die
as soon as possible."

III

AUNT JANE'S ALBUM

[Illustration]

They were a bizarre mass of color on the sweet spring landscape, those
patchwork quilts, swaying in a long line under the elms and maples.
The old orchard made a blossoming background for them, and farther off
on the horizon rose the beauty of fresh verdure and purple mist on
those low hills, or "knobs," that are to the heart of the Kentuckian
as the Alps to the Swiss or the sea to the sailor.

I opened the gate softly and paused for a moment between the
blossoming lilacs that grew on each side of the path. The fragrance of
the white and the purple blooms was like a resurrection-call over the
graves of many a dead spring; and as I stood, shaken with thoughts as
the flowers are with the winds, Aunt Jane came around from the back of
the house, her black silk cape fluttering from her shoulders, and a
calico sunbonnet hiding her features in its cavernous depth. She
walked briskly to the clothes-line and began patting and smoothing the
quilts where the breeze had disarranged them.

"Aunt Jane," I called out, "are you having a fair all by yourself?"

She turned quickly, pushing back the sunbonnet from her eyes.

"Why, child," she said, with a happy laugh, "you come pretty nigh
skeerin' me. No