"Pa, it r'aly seems to me that for a vain creetur in a fleetin' world, and a perfessor besides, there'd ought to be more things to talk about than beans!" Grandpa Keeler sighed still more deeply, gazed wistfully towards the barn, as though he would fain have shuffled out in that direction; but the weather being so warm, he refrained. He glanced at me with a feeble, helpless smile, his head fell backward, his eyes gradually closed, and, in spite of the iniquities which covered his ancient head, he fell into a slumber that had all the semblance of childlike and unblemished innocence. CHAPTER XIX. DEATH OF THE CRADLEBOW. While Grandpa Keeler dozed peacefully, Emily Gaskell, also "passin' by," joined the group of women on the doorsteps of the Ark. Emily, by the way, was regarded as a hopeful subject of the "awakenin'." She had been to see a doctor in Farmouth, who told her she could not live through another winter "with that cough on her." She sat very still in the meetings, it was said, and seemed "tetched and wonderful," whereas she had been wont formerly, on occasions of this solemn nature, to evince many signs of restlessness, and even to engage in droll and sly diversions for the greater delectation of the "unconsarned." Emily herself was particularly unreserved on the subject of her spiritual condition. Her tone had lost none of its former bright vivacity, though I thought I saw frequently now, while she was talking, a softer shadow steal over the restless, consuming fire in her blue eyes. "I know what some on 'em say," said she; "I know what I might 'a' said, jest as like as not, if it had been somebody else in my place. Oh, she's afraid she ain't a goin' to git well, and so she's a seekin' religion. She's scart into it! "Wall, if folks that know me are a mind to say that, they may; though if it comes to bein' scart into religion by what the doctors said, I should 'a' jined the church twenty times over! "It ain't because I'm afraid o' what'll happen to me after I'm all dead and peaceable. It's because I want a little more comfort while I'm a livin'. Seems to me there's more comfort needed for the livin'. "And ever since my Brother 'Lihu died, seems as though them last words o' hisn have been a ringin' in my ears. 'I know somebody that'll watch. Who? Jesus will! Jesus will!' over and over again. And when I get to worryin' about things, and can't see no way through, or whoever's a goin' to straighten em' out, it keeps agoin', 'Who, then? Jesus will! Jesus will!' over and over. And 'Lihu wasn't a professor, neither; and maybe he hadn't no right to take the comfort out o' them words that he did; and maybe I hain't no right, and it's only like a string o' music that'll keep a runnin' in a body's head sometimes and they not thinkin' nor meanin' any thin'.