"Now, I wonder what has become of that old lace curtain," said Mrs. Jucklin. "I have looked everywhere and can't find it, and I know it was in the chest up stairs." The old man began to scratch his head. "I don't know who could have taken it," Mrs. Jucklin went on. "It couldn't have walked off, I'm sure. Limuel?" "Yes, ma'm." "Do you know what has become of that old curtain?" "What, that ragged old thing that wan't worth nothin'?" "Worth nothin'! Why, it belonged to my grandmother." "I never heard of that before." "Oh, yes, you have, and what's the use of talkin' that way? You've known it all the time." "News to me," said the old man. "It's not news to you, anything of the sort; but the question is, do you know what has become of it?" "Susan, in this here life many things happen, things that we wish hadn't happened. I am not sorry that they fit to a finish, for that had to be; but I am sorry that I wrapped 'em in that curtain when I buried 'em." "Gracious alive, what has possessed the man! Oh, you do distress me so. How could you do such a thing, Limuel? I do believe you have gone daft. But you go right out there now and dig up them good-for-nothin' chickens and bring me that curtain. Go right on this minit." "What, Susan, and rob the dead and the brave? You wouldn't have me do that." "Go on, I tell you, or I'll go myself, and throw the fetchtaked things over to the hogs. The idee of wrappin' up them cruel, good-for-nothin' things in a curtain like that. Oh, I never was so provoked in my life." The old man got up and stretched himself. "Bill," said he, "I am sometimes forced to believe that the women folks are lackin' in human sympathy. Ma'm, I'll fetch your curtain, but I've got to have somethin' to wrap around the dead and the brave." "Don't you take that apron. Why, if he wouldn't take the best apron I've got, right out from under my very eyes. And you can't have that stand cover, either." "Well, but, by jings, what can I have? Am I a traveler that has jest stopped here to stay all night? There's no use in talkin'; I'm goin' to have 'em put away decent. Take me for a barbarian?" He went out, and just as I was going up to bed I met him in the passage way, with a roll of white stuff in his bare arms, and as he stepped into the room I heard his wife exclaim: "Mercy on me, if he hasn't taken his best shirt. And what he is goin' to do for somethin' to wear the Lord only knows." I heard Guinea laughing, and then I heard the old man say that what a man happened to wear would make but little difference with the Lord. I was so worn that my sleep that night was dreamless, but when early at morning they called me to breakfast I knew that during the hours of that deep oblivion I had been vaguely conscious of a dim and shadowy happiness; and a vivid truth came upon me with the first glimpse of sunlight.