But every time I would come out into the settin' room where he sot and roust him up to get sunthin' for me, he would say, almost warmly-- "Samantha, that last remark of your'n wuz very powerful." And I wouldn't waste my time nor hisen by tellin' him that I hadn't made no remark, nor thought on't. I see it would hurt his feelin's, specilly as he would add in haste-- "That he didn't see how folks needed so much sleep; as for him, it wuz a real treat to keep awake all night, now and then." No, I would let it go, and ask him for burdock or beet, as the case might be. Truly I had enugh on my mind and heart that night without disputin' with my Josiah. Ralph S. Robinson would lay lookin' like a dead man some of the time, still and demute, and then he would speak out in a strange language, stranger than any I ever heard. He would preach sermons in that language, I a-knowin' it wuz a sermen by his gestures, and also by my feelin's. And then he would shet up his eyes and pray in that strange, strange tongue, and anon breakin' out into our own language. And once he said: "And now may the peace of God be with you all. Amen. The peace of God! the peace! the peace!" His voice lingered sort o' lovin'ly over that word, and I felt that he wuz a-thinkin' then of the real peace, the onbroken stillness, outside and inside, that he invoked. Rosy would steal in now and then like a sweet little shadow, and bend down and kiss her Pa, and cry a little over his thin, white hands which wuz a-lyin' on the coverlet, or else lifted in that strange speech that sounded so curius to us, a-risin' up out of the stillness of a Loontown spare bedroom on a calm moonlit evenin'. Wall, Friday and Saturday he wuz crazier'n a loon, more'n half the time he wuz, but along Saturday afternoon the Doctor told us that the fever would turn sometime the latter part of the night, and if he could sleep then, and not be disturbed, there would be a chance for his life. Wall, Miss Timson and Rosy both told me how the ringin' of the bells seemed to roust him up and skair him (as it were) and git him all excited and crazy. And they both wuz dretful anxius about the mornin' bells which would ring when Ralph would mebby be sleepin'. So thinkin' it wuz a case of life and death, and findin' out who wuz the one to tackle in the matter, I calmly tied on my bonnet and walked over and tackled him. CHAPTER XXIV. It wuz Deacon Garven and he wuz a close communion Baptist by perswaision, and a good man, so fur as firm morals and a sound creed goes. Some things he lacked: he hadn't no immagination at all, not one speck. And in makin' him up, it seems as if he had a leetle more justice added to him to make up a lack of charity and pity. And he had a good deal of sternness and resolve gin him, to make up, I spoze, for a lack of tenderness and sweetness of nater.