But I wanted to get that dre’tful hand out o’ sight. I got in t’ th’ barn, somehow, An’ felt roun’ till I got a spade. I couldn’t stop fer a lantern, Besides, the moonlight was bright enough in all conscience. Then I scooped that awful thing up in th’ spade. I had a sight o’ trouble doin’ it. It slid off, and tipped over, and I couldn’t bear Ev’n to touch it with my foot to prop it, But I done it somehow. Then I carried it off behind the barn, Clost to an old appletree Where you couldn’t see from the house, An’ I buried it, Good an’ deep. I don’t rec’lect nothin’ more o’ that night. Clarence woke me up in th’ mornin’, Hollerin’ for me to come down and set th’ milk. When he’d gone I stole roun’ to the appletree And seed the earth all newly turned Where I left it in my hurry. I did a heap o’ gardenin’ That mornin’. I couldn’t cut no big sods Fear Clarence would notice and ask me what I wanted ’em fer, So I got teeny bits o’ turf here and ther,’ And no one couldn’t tell ther’d be’n any diggin’ When I got through. They was awful days after that, Mis’ Priest, I used ter go every mornin’ and poke about them bushes, And up and down the fence, Ter find the body that hand come off of. But I couldn’t never find nothin’. I’d lay awake nights Hearin’ them laylocks blowin’ and whiskin’. Finally I had Clarence cut ’em down An’ make a big bonfire of ’em. I told him the smell made me sick, An’ that warn’t no lie, I can’t a’ bear the smell on ’em now. An no wonder, es you say. I fretted somethin’ awful about that hand. I wondered could it be Hiram’s, But folks don’t rob graveyards hereabouts. Besides Hiram’s hands warn’t that awful, starin’ white. I give up seein’ people, I was afeared I’d say somethin’. You know what folks thought of me Better’n I do, I dessay, But maybe now you’ll see I couldn’t do nothin’ diffrent. But I stuck it out, I warn’t goin’ to be downed By no loose hand, no matter how it come ther’. But that ain’t the worst, Mis’ Priest, Not by a long way. Two years ago Mr. Densmore made me an offer for Cherry’s Orchard. Well, I’d got used to th’ thought of bein’ sort o’ blighted, And I warn’t scared no more. Lived down my fear, I guess. I’d kinder got used t’ the thought o’ that awful night, And I didn’t mope much about it. Only I never went out o’ doors by moonlight; That stuck. Well, when Mr. Densmore’s offer come, I started thinkin’ about the place An’ all the things that had gone on ther’. Thinks I, I guess I’ll go and see where I put the hand. I was foolhardy with the long time that had gone by. I knew the place real well, Fer I’d put it right in between two o’ the apple-roots. I don’t know what possessed me, Mis’ Priest, But I kinder wanted to know That the hand had been flesh and bone, anyway.