“Are you the nurse?” the question was put with feverish eagerness. “No, but perhaps I can do something to make you more comfortable.” The old woman began to cry loudly like a child. “No, there ain’t. He’s been after me again, tormentin’ me an’ tauntin’ me.” “Who’s been after you?” “My son. He wants the forty dollars what is all I have in this yearth, to buy him a gun, an’ I want it to bury me. I want to be buried decent with a preacher an’ the singin’ of psalms an’ prayin’ to carry me away from this yearth. He can’t get it now, but he can get it when I’m dead.” She began to scream, “I want to be buried decent! I want to be buried decent!” Elizabeth went nearer to the dreadful bed. “Why don’t you make a will?” “Learnin’ is the possession of some, but not of none in the mountains,” said the old woman. She began to cry again. “I’ll write a will for you if I can find anything to write with,” offered Elizabeth. The old woman made a desperate effort to raise herself on her elbow and thus see more plainly this comforting visitor. “Will it hold in the courts of men?” “It will hold if you have the forty dollars,” Elizabeth assured her. “There are some men back here who will witness it, I’m sure.” Fortunately one of the road-makers had a dull pencil and an old envelope. But they were not so willing to help as Elizabeth expected. At last after a great deal of persuasion the youngest consented to go with her. She wrote a brief statement and the old woman put a mark on it, and the road-maker signed his name as witness. Then he hurried away, glad to get out of the filthy cabin. “Put it up there back of the beam, lady. It’s a place my offspring have never found.” “Can’t I do anything to make you comfortable? I could heat some water and--” as she spoke Elizabeth looked round for a vessel or cloths or soap. “Water shortens life,” said the old soul as though she were quoting a proverb. Then Elizabeth asked her a question, because she had come to ask it, not because she had either expectation or desire of having it answered here. “Did you ever know John Baring?” Elizabeth made at once for the door. From the old lips fell a stream of denunciation, violent and profane. “He lost the battle! It was him as did it! He lost the battle!” The old woman denounced not only John Baring, but his descendants to distant generations. Elizabeth did not stay to hear the end. She stepped out into the road and walked rapidly back. At the bend, seeing the road-makers, she drew a deep breath of relief. They were still standing motionless. “We didn’t expect you’d stay long, miss.” “She’s a dreadful old woman!” said Elizabeth. “They’re all dreadful, miss, but the fear of God’s bein’ put into ’em by the constabulary. They’ve built too many huckleberry fires--” “What are huckleberry fires?”