kind uv cry to ourselves, 'nd we make it up between us for the dead
child's sake.

Well, you kin see how it wuz that so many uv us liked Bill; he had soothed
our hearts,--there's nothin' like sympathy after all. Bill's po'try hed
heart in it; it didn't surprise you or scare you; it jest got down in
under your vest, 'nd before you knew it you wuz all choked up. I know all
about your fashionable po'try and your famous potes,--Martha took Godey's
for a year. Folks that live in the city can't write po'try,--not the real,
genuine article. To write po'try, as I figure it, the heart must have
somethin' to feed on; you can't get that somethin' whar there ain't trees
'nd grass 'nd birds 'nd flowers. Bill loved these things, and he fed his
heart on 'em, and that's why his po'try wuz so much better than anybody
else's.

I ain't worryin' much about Bill now; I take it that everythink is for the
best. When they told me that Bill died in a drunken fit I felt that his
end oughter have come some other way,--he wuz too good a man for that. But
maybe, after all, it was ordered for the best. Jist imagine Bill
a-standin' up for jedgment; jist imagine that poor, sorrowful, shiverin'
critter waitin' for his turn to come. Pictur', if you can, how full of
penitence he is, 'nd how full uv po'try 'nd gentleness 'nd misery. The
Lord ain't a-goin' to be too hard on that poor wretch. Of course we can't
comprehend Divine mercy; we only know that it is full of compassion,--a
compassion infinitely tenderer and sweeter than ours. And the more I think
on 't, the more I reckon that Bill will plead to win that mercy, for, like
as not, the little ones--my Allie with the rest--will run to him when they
see him in his trubble and will hold his tremblin' hands 'nd twine their
arms about him, and plead, with him, for compassion.