The old lady wuz took down first, and her great anxiety wuz--"That Pa
shouldn't know that she wuz so sick."

But before she died, "Pa" in another room wuz took with it, and passed
away a day before she did.

She worried all that mornin' about "Pa," and--"How bad he would feel if
he knew she wuz so sick!" But along late in the afternoon, when the
Winter sun wuz makin' a pale reflection on the wall through the south
winder, she looked up, and sez she--

"Why, there stands Pa right by my bed, and he wants me to git up and go
with him. And, Isabelle, I must go."

And she did.

[Illustration: "Why, there stands Pa, and he wants me to git up and
go with him."]


And Isabelle wuz left alone.

They wuz buried in one grave. And the funeral sermon, they say, wuz
enough to melt a stun, if there had been any stuns round where they
could hear it.

Isabelle didn't hear it (don't git the idee that I am a-wantin' to
compare her to a stun; no, fur from it). She wuz a-layin' to home on a
bed, with her sad eyes bent on nothin'ess and emptiness and utter
desolation, so it seemed to her.