"Thank you, my boy," said he, "thank you!"

"I'm glad to do it," I answered--and turned away my head.

"Anything more I can do for you?" asked Doctor Mix, much kinder than
before.

"I'd be much obliged," I replied, "if you could tell me where I can find
some one that'll be able to show me my mother's grave."

"I'll take you there," he said quickly.

We rode to the graveyard in his sleigh, the bells jingling too merrily
by far, I thought; and then to a marble-cutter from whom I bought a
headstone to be put up in the spring. I worked out an epitaph which
Doctor Mix, who seemed to see through the case pretty well, put into
good language, reading as follows: "Here lies the body of Mary Brouwer
Vandemark, born in Ulster County, New York, in 1815; died Madison,
Wisconsin, October 19, 1854. Erected to her memory by her son, Jacob T.
Vandemark." So I cut the name of Rucker from our family record; but, of
course, he never knew.

Then the doctor took me back to the tavern, trying to persuade me on the
way to locate in Madison. He had some vacant lots he wanted to show me;
and said that he and a company of friends had laid out new towns at half
a dozen different places in Wisconsin, and even in Minnesota and Iowa.
Before we got back he saw, though I tried to be civil, that I was not
thinking about what he was saying, and so he let me think in peace; but
he shook hands with me kindly at parting, and wished I could have got
there in September.