Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/326

322 and was trying to be good. At his wife's suggestion he stayed in bed for several days. He showed gratitude to her for the first time in their married life.

"Elizabeth, you are a good woman," he said, and Elizabeth wept.

"I reckon Mam' Peachy air been a great trial ter you. I'm glad she's dead. She was too strong fer me. I hadn't ought ter let her do you so mean, but she was too strong—too strong."

Philip and his mother determined to burn everything in Aunt Peachy's room. Old Abe was told he could carry off anything he valued, but he wanted nothing.

"I's scairt she mought come back fer her things, so I ain't gonter have none er them 'roun' me," he said. "I 'low burnin' would be the saftes' way."

Accordingly, very early on the morning after the accident they undertook the horrid task. Betsy insisted upon helping, although they hated to have her touch the dirty things found in the old woman's room. Many articles that had been lost by different members of the family were unearthed—things the old woman could not have wanted or used, but that she must have stolen simply for the sake of stealing.