poor that nobody'd take the gift of it. People said that he'd orter go
to the poorhouse, so that when he was sick--which was pretty much all
the time--he'd have somebody to take care of him. But he'd got kinder
attached to the old place, seein' he was born there, and never lived
anywhere else, and go he wouldn't.

"Everybody expected he was near his end, and nobody'd have been
surprised to hear of his death at any minute. But it's strange how some
folks are determined to live on, as I said before. So Keziah, though he
looked so old when I was a boy that it didn't seem as if he could look
any older, kept on livin,' and livin', and arter I got married to Betsy
Sprague, he was livin' still.

"One day, I remember I was passin' by the old man's shanty, when I heard
a dreadful groanin', and thinks I to myself, 'I shouldn't wonder if the
old man was on his last legs.' So in I bolted. There he was, to be sure,
a lyin', on the bed, all curled up into a heap, breathin' dreadful hard,
and lookin' as white and pale as any ghost. I didn't know exactly
what to do, so I went and got some water, but he motioned it away, and
wouldn't drink it, but kept on groanin'.

"'He mustn't be left here to die without any assistance,' thinks I, so I
ran off as fast I could to find the doctor.

"I found him eatin' dinner----

"Come quick," says I, "to old Keziah Onthank's. He's dyin', as sure as
my name is Jehoshaphat."

"Well," said the doctor, "die or no die, I can't come till I've eaten my