“She lived four years full, an’ inter five, from the time she married Nathe till we put her in the graveyard in the row above Ponnie an’ her two. We wuz lookin’ fer Callie’s baby, little Rufe, to die, an’ Nathe ’lowed they could lay there together. That soft look Callie had turned out to be weak lungs, an’ the cotton-mills hadn’t hepped ’em any. The hard work at Nathe’s pulled her down to a shadder. I own it, I got to thinkin’ a heap of Callie. Looked like she wuz tryin’ her best an’ never botherin’ Nathe, er lettin’ on she wuz any more to him than a hired woman. When I seen it wuz killin’ her, I wuz druv to say something. I’d tried Nathe, an’ that didn’t hep any, so I went to Callie an’ told her straight out that she could git a divorce from Nathe any day she wanted it, fer the whole country knowed how he wuz runnin’ on, an’ the deacons had been to him about it. I said she wouldn’t have to go fur, nuther, to git somebody to take keer of her right. She wouldn’t have to go blood-naked ner eat acorns, not by a thousan’ mile, while I wuz drawin’ a workin’-man’s breath. When I said that, Callie turned her back on me an’ begun to cry. I waited to see what she wuz goin’ to say, fer a woman’s cryin’ might mean one thing an’ it might mean another. When she turned round she says: ‘Ranzie, I’ll fergive ye ef ye’ll go to church reg’lar.’ An’ I went to meetin’ from then on, till Callie died, though it wuzn’t easy to set still an’ listen to ol’ Silas Mack a-whinin’ from the time he got up to preach till he set down two hours afterwards. Barrin’ that, I ain’t ever been sorry I let Callie know she could git away ef she wanted to. I told Nathe about it after she wuz dead, an’ he said he wouldn’t hold it agin me, seein’ he never hurt hissef makin’ it easy fer Callie, an’ he told me to stay right on with him an’ hep look after the farm. I thought ef he didn’t want to make a fuss, I wouldn’t, an’ I staid right on till he married Lu Siler. He wuzn’t slow about pickin’ up Lu. She hadn’t been a widder more’n three er four months, an’ chainces wuz thick with her, ’cause she had a house an’ lot in Carson, an’ a fine piece o’ land on Little Horse Branch. When Nathe got ready he walked right in an’ took her. She wuz a little older’n him, an’ short on looks, but there never wuz a better woman than Lu, leavin’ out Callie, an’ she wuz awful proud o’ Nathe. She wuz the one who got him inter this Freemason business, bein’ Eastern Star hersef, an’ a lot o’ her folks an’ friends belongin’. Nathe took to it fine, an’ went as high as he could as fast as they’d take him, an’ always held a big hand afterwards in whatever they had goin’ on, till late years when most o’ the old members had drapped out er wuz buried, an’ he seemed to sort o’ fergit about it. He went around with Lu, an’ treated her respectful, like he ort, with her deedin’ him ever’thing she had an’ cuttin’ out her own folks. He sold the house an’ lot in Carson an’ built the big house on the farm