“But, of course what I think about it don’t make any difference, so I’d better hurry on. Well, after she fell over I stood still for a few minutes waitin’ for her to get up. Of course I thought she’d get right up again, and mebbe come back at me. But she didn’t move. Then I thought she was scarin’ me, and I just sat down for a few minutes to show her that I wa’n’t goin’ to be fooled in no such way. Still she didn’t stir. Then I commenced to be half scart and half mad. I didn’t think it was right to try to make me believe I had done anything like that. So I said, ‘When you’ve laid there long enough you’d better get up.’ Then I said, ‘What’s the use of playin’ theater, you can’t fool me. I’m goin’ to bed and when you get ready you can come along.’ But I didn’t go to bed; I just sat still a little longer, and then I stepped over by her head and looked down at it, and I thought it didn’t look right, and then I was scart in earnest. Just then I heard the kid cry, and I didn’t want him to come out, so I locked the outside door and took a good look to see that all the curtains was clear down, and went in to see the kid. I lit a candle in the bedroom and talked with him a little; told him ever’thing was all right and to go to sleep, and I’d come in again in a minute or two. Then I went back to the settin’ room to see her. “Before I looked at her face I looked down to her feet to see if maybe they hadn’t moved, for I didn’t want to look at her face if I could help it. And I thought mebbe this would be the best way. But the feet was just where they was before; then I looked at her hands and they hadn’t moved, so I knew I just had to look at her face. I hadn’t examined her very close before, I was so scart, and I never could look at blood or dead folks, but of course this was different; so I got down on the floor close up to her face, and I seen the great welt along her forehead and top of her head and across the temple, and ‘twas all covered with blood and a lot of it had got on the floor. Her eyes was wide open. I knew they didn’t see anything. They looked just as if they’d been turned to glass, before she’d had time to shut ‘em. I felt of her wrist to see if her pulse was goin’. At first I thought it wa’n’t, and then I thought I felt it go a little, and I never felt so good in all my life. I pushed my finger down harder, but I couldn’t get it again. Then I felt of her heart and it was just the same way. I leaned over to her ear, and asked her to please wake up, that I was awful sorry, and I didn’t know what I was doin’, and if she’d just speak I’d be good to her all my life and do ever’thing I could for her, and then I asked her to do it on account of the boy, but still she didn’t move. Of course I was almost scart to death by this time; first I thought I’d call the neighbors and send for a doctor and then I thought that was no use. If she wa’n’t dead I didn’t need him, and if she was I must try to do somethin’ so no one would find it out.