"'Oh, I donno,' s'she, an' I could see her smilin' in that bright light, 'oh, I donno. It'll be some place to come to, afterwards. When I go out walkin',' s'she, 'I ain't no place to head for. I sort o' circle 'round an' come back. I ain't even a grave to visit,' s'she, 'an' it'll be kind o' cosey to come up here on the hill an' set down by the ashes--like they _belonged_.' "I know I heard Eb Goodnight laugh, kind o' cracked an' enjoyable, an' I took some shame to him for makin' fun o' the poor girl. "'She's goin' clear out o' her head,' thinks I, 'an' you'd better get her home with you, short off.' So I put my arm around her, persuadish, an' I says: 'Elspie,' I says, 'you come on to my house now for a spell,' I says. But Eb, he steps in, prompter'n I ever knew him--I'd never heard him do a thing decisive an' sudden excep' sneeze, an' them he always done his best to swallow. 'I'll take her to your house,' he says to me; 'you go on up there to them women. I won't be no use up there,' he says. An' that was reasonable enough, on account o' Eb not bein' the decisive kind, for fires an' such. "So Eb he went off, takin' Elspie to my house, an' I went on up the hill, where Timothy Toplady and Silas Sykes an' Eppleby was rushin' round, wild an' sudden, herdin' the inmates here an' there, vague an' energetic. I didn't do much better, an' I done worse too, because I burned my left wrist, long an' deep. When I got home with it, Eb was settin' on the front stoop with Elspie, an' when he heard about the wrist, he come in an' done the lightin' up. An' Elspie, she fair su'prised me. "'Where do you keep your rags?' s'she, brisk. "'In that flour chest I don't use,' I says, 'in the shed.' "My land! she was back in a minute with a soft piece o' linen an' the black oil off the clock shelf that I hadn't told her where it was, an' she bound up my wrist like she'd created that burn an' understood it up an' down. "'Now you get into the bed,' she says, 'without workin' the rag off. I'm all right,' s'she. 'I can lock up. I like hevin' it to do,' she told me. "But Eb puts in, kind o' eager:-- "'Lemme lock up the shed--it's dark as a hat out there an' you might sprain over your ankle,' he says awkward. An' so he done the lockin' up, an' it come over me he liked hevin' that little householdy thing to do. An' then he went off home--that is, to where he stopped an' hated it so.