Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/539

1866.] 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 I got some sweetbrier sprigs, and laid round her in the coffin. I've seen prettier coffins, but I never see no face look so pretty as Jinny's. Mrs. Whitmarsh had the funeral next morning. She said she wanted to that night, so she could put the room airing, but she supposed folks would talk, and, besides, they didn't get the grave dug quick enough neither. Mrs. Kemp let me go to the funeral. I thought they was going to carry her over to the poor-house burying-ground, but they didn't, 'cause 't would cost so much for a horse and wagon. The right minister was gone away, and the one that was there was going off in the cars, so he had to hurry. There wa'n't hardly anybody there, only some men to let the coffin down, and the sexton, and Mrs. Whitmarsh and Polly Wheelock and I. The minister prayed a little speck of a prayer and went right away. I heard Mrs. Whitmarsh telling Mrs. Kemp she thought she'd got out of it pretty well, seeing she didn't expect nothing but what she'd got to buy the coffin, and get the grave dug, and be to all the expense. She said she guessed nobody'd catch her having another girl bound out to her. Mrs. Kemp said she always knew 't was a great risk, and that was why she didn't have me bound.

"That summer, when berries was ripe, Mrs. Kemp let me go and pick 'em and carry 'em round to sell; and she said I might have a cent for every quart I sold. I got over three dollars that summer for myself."

"What did you do with it?"

"I bought some shoes, and some yarn to knit me some stockings. I can knit real good."

"How came you to leave Mrs. Kemp."

"Partly 't was 'cause she didn't like my not buying her old green shawl with my share of the money for the berries; and partly 'cause I got cold, and it settled in my feet so's I couldn't hardly go round. So she told me she'd concluded to have me go back to the poor-house. If she kept a girl, she said, she wanted one to wait on her, and not to be waited on. She waited two or three days to see if I didn't get better, so as I could walk over there; but I didn't. And one