"Day after the fun'ral," he went on, "I says to Mis' Jones, 'I'm goin' back out West,' I says, 'an' I can't say how long I shall be gone--long enough, anyway,' I says, 'to git it into my head that when I come back the' won't be no little feller to jump up an' 'round my neck when I come into the house; but, long or short, I'll come back some time, an' meanwhile, as fur 's things between you an' me air, they're to go on jest the same, an' more 'n that, do you think you'll remember him some?' I says. "'As long as I live,' she says, 'jest like my own.' "'Wa'al,' I says, 'long 's you remember him, he'll be, in a way, livin' to ye, an' as long 's that I allow to pay fer his keep an' tendin' jest the same as I have, _an'_,' I says, 'if you don't let me you ain't no friend o' mine, an' you _ben_ a _good_ one.' Wa'al, she squimmidged some, but I wouldn't let her say 'No.' 'I've 'ranged it all with my pardner an' other ways,' I says, 'an' more 'n that, if you git into any kind of a scrape an' I don't happen to be got at, you go to him an' git what you want.'" "I hope she lived and prospered," said John fervently. "She lived twenty year," said David, "an' I wish she was livin' now. I never drawed a check on her account without feelin' 't I was doin' somethin' for my little boy. "The's a good many diff'rent sorts an' kinds o' sorro'," he said, after a moment, "that's in some ways kind o' kin to each other, but I guess losin' a child 's a specie by itself. Of course I passed the achin', smartin' point years ago, but it's somethin' you can't fergit--that is, you can't help feelin' about it, because it ain't only what the child _was_ to you, but what you keep thinkin' he'd 'a' ben growin' more an' more to _be_ to you. When I lost my little boy I didn't only lose him as he was, but I ben losin' him over an' agin all these years. What he'd 'a' ben when he was _so_ old; an' what when he'd got to be a big boy; an' what he'd 'a' ben when he went mebbe to collidge; an' what he'd 'a' ben afterward, an' up to _now_. Of course the times when a man stuffs his face down into the pillers nights, passes, after a while; but while the's some sorro's that the happenin' o' things helps ye to fergit, I guess the's some that the happenin' o' things keeps ye rememberin', an' losin' a child 's one on 'em." CHAPTER XLI.