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 a climactic sentence; and there was another uneasy stir among the circle of listeners.

"It—it was n't the baby, was it?" asked Jappie Barrison, almost tremulously.

"It was Johnson's baby," said Lonely, with impressive slowness. "And turned to solid stone, from head to foot!

"That hired man dropped her a couple o' times—he was in such a hustle to get up to the house with the news—and chipped a piece or two off her. But he got her home, and leaned her up against a what-not in the parlor, and called 'em all in to look at her. The old man did n't have the heart to bury that baby, it seemed so natural and lifelike, and though Arabella—she 's the oldest girl, and meaner 'n cats!—wanted the old man to use the figger for a sort o' tombstone for the rest o' the fam'ly, and so save a heap o' money, she said, he was so took up with that petrified child that he just kept it round the house for a sort o' ornament."

Lonely came to a finish, and leaned back contentedly.

"Them 's lies!" said the ever-antagonistic Em'ly Bird, promptly, and with conviction.