"Hillard Watts has mistuck me for the Almighty mighty nigh all his life. It's about time the blackberries was a gittin' ripe anyway." The Bishop found the greatest distress at Uncle Dave Dickey's. Aunt Sally Dickey, his wife, was weeping on the front porch, while Tilly, Uncle Dave's pretty grown daughter, her calico dress tucked up for the morning's work, showing feet and ankles that would grace a duchess, was lamenting loudly on the back porch. A coon dog of uncertain lineage and intellectual development, tuned to the howling pitch, doubtless, by the music of Tilly's sobs, joined in the chorus. "Po' Davy is gwine--he's most gone--boo--boo-oo!" sobbed Aunt Sally. "Pap--Pap--don't leave us," echoed Tilly from the back porch. "Ow--wow--oo--oo," howled the dog. The Bishop went in sad and subdued, expecting to find Uncle Davy breathing his last. Instead, he found him sitting bolt upright in bed, and sobbing even more lustily than his wife and daughter. He stretched out his hands pitiably as his old friend went in. "Most gone"--he sobbed--"Hillard--the old man is most gone. You've come jus' in time to see your old friend breathe his las' an' to witness his will," and he broke out sobbing afresh, in which Aunt Sally and Tilly and the dog, all of whom had followed the Bishop in, joined. The Bishop took in the situation at a glance. Then he broke into a smile that gradually settled all over his kindly face. "Look aheah, Davy, you ain't no mo' dyin' than I am." "What--what?" said Uncle Davy between his sobs--"I ain't a dyin', Hillard? Oh, yes, I be. Sally and Tilly both say so." "Now, look aheah, Davy, it ain't so. I've seed hundreds die--yes, hundreds--strong men, babes--women and little tots, strong ones, and weak and frail ones, given to tears, but I've never seed one die yet sheddin' a single tear, let alone blubberin' like a calf. It's agin nature. Davy, dyin' men don't weep. It's always all right with 'em. It's the one moment of all their lives, often, that everything is all right, seein' as they do, that all life has been a dream--all back of death jes' a beginnin' to live, an' so they die contented. No--no, Davy, if they've lived right they want to smile, not weep." There was an immediate snuffing and drying of tears all around. Uncle Davy looked sheepishly at Aunt Sally, she passed the same look on to Tilly, and Tilly passed it to the coon dog. Here it rested in its birthplace. "Come to think of it, Hillard," said Uncle Dave after a while, "but I believe you are right." Tilly came back, and she and Aunt Sally nodded their heads: "Yes, Hillard, you're right," went on Uncle Davy, "Tilly and Sally both say so." "How come you to think you was dyin' anyway?" asked the Bishop. "Hillard,--you kno', Hillard--the old man's been thinkin' he'd go sudden-like a long time." He raised his eyes to heaven: "Yes, Lord, thy servant is even ready."