friend like Miss Katherine you've got strength to do anything. To stand
anything, too.

The beautiful part of it is that I live with her; that is, she lives in
the Asylum, and I sleep in the room with her.

It happened this way. Last summer I didn't want to do anything but sit
down. It was the funniest thing, for before that I never did like to sit
down if I could stand up, or skip around, or climb, or run, or dance, or
jump. I never could walk straight or slow, and I never can keep step.

Well, last summer I didn't want to move, and I couldn't eat, and I
didn't even feel like reading. I'd have such queer slipping-away
feelings right in my heart that I'd call myself a drop of ink on a
blotter that was spreading and spreading and couldn't stop. Sometimes I
would think I was sinking down and down, but I really wasn't sinking,
for I didn't move. I only felt like I was, and I was afraid to go to
sleep at night for fear I would die, and I stayed awake so as to know
about it if I did.

And then I began to be afraid of dying, and my heart would beat so I
thought it would wear out. But I didn't tell anybody how I felt. I was
ashamed of being afraid, and I just told God, because I knew He could
understand better than anybody else; and I asked Him please to hold on
to me, I not being able to do much holding myself, and He held. I know
it, for I felt it.

You see, Mrs. Blamire--she's Miss Bray's assistant--was away; Miss Bray
was busy getting ready to go when Mrs. Blamire came back; and Miss Jones
was pickling and preserving. I didn't want to bother her, so I dragged