ACCORDING to rural custom the young men and young women of the neighborhood came that evening to keep watch over Ralph Rundel's body. In an open coffin resting on two chairs, it occupied the center of the room in which he died.

Amanda had been busy all day cooking dainties—pies, cakes, custards, and making cider from apples gathered in the orchard. She had swept and dusted the house throughout, put the candles into their places, cleaned and filled the lamps, and altered her black dress to fit the slender form of her sister, who had been in her room all day, refusing to show herself to the constant stream of curious, inquiring visitors—men, women, and children who sat about the front and rear doors, leaned on the fences of the yard and cow-lot, and even invaded the kitchen.

As for Paul, no one seemed to notice him, and of sympathy for him little was expressed. Mute and dejected he moved about, attending to his father's former duties as well as his own.

The night fell. The stars came out. There was a low hum of good cheer and merriment from the assembled company inside. To escape it, Paul slipped behind the house and threw himself down on the grass sward beneath the apple-trees. His awful sorrow, weird and gruesome, for which there was no outlet, gave him actual physical pain.

There was singing within the house. The young persons were practising hymns for the funeral service the next day. Mistakes were made, and there was merry, spontaneous laughter, which grated on the boy's ears. He buried his face in the cool, fragrant grass, and thus subdued the rising sob of which he was ashamed. In his mind's eye he saw the exquisite face of Ethel Mayfield, but even it held scant comfort, for how could such as she belong to such deplorable surroundings? The tones of her gentle voice, as she promised to pray for him, seemed a part of some vague dream from which sordid fact had roused him.

“Prayers?” he sneered. “What puny mortal could pray this away, or undo the damnable thing even by the weight of a hair? There isn't any God to pray to—there isn't anything but pain, torment, and death.” There was a tentative step on the grass. Amanda was groping her way around the well. He saw her peering here and there in the shadows under the trees. “Oh!” she exclaimed, on seeing him, as he suddenly sat up and turned his face toward her. “You gave me a scare. At sech a time a body is apt to think they see ghosts, whether they do or not. I've been lookin' high an' low for you, an' axin' the company whar you was at. You hain't had no supper, have you?”

He answered briefly in the negative.

“Well, come on in the kitchen,” she pursued. “I've kept some 'taters and pork-chops hot, an' thar's plenty o' cold buttermilk.”

“I don't want anything,” he said, impatiently, and even roughly. “I couldn't swallow a bite to save my life—not to save my life, I couldn't!”

Her hands on her hips, Amanda stared down at him. “This ain't a-goin' to do, Paul,” she gently protested. “This ain't no time for you to pout an' be cranky. You are our only man now. Yore ma's shet up in her room with a mad cryin' spell every half-hour, an' I have to lay down my work an' run, pacify, an' pet 'er. She's got all sorts o' finicky notions in 'er head that folks are a-talkin' about her an' a certain party. She heard 'em a-laughin' in thar jest now, an' actually started in to give 'em a piece o' 'er mind. I got to 'er in time—thank the Lord! She's now in bed cryin' like 'er heart is broke.”

“Huh, I see, I see!” Paul sniffed. “An' well she may be afraid o' talk, an' you too, for bringing her up as you have. Folks say she's jest a doll, and she is—she is, and a fool flimsy one at that!”

“I ain't a-goin' to listen to you, boy,” Amanda broke in, firmly. “You are too young an' inexperienced to talk that way about the woman that fetched you into the world an' gave you what life you got. If your ma was petted an' sp'ilt, that was my fault, not her'n, an' bein' sp'ilt only makes sech things as this go harder with 'er. If her an' yore pa wasn't the most lovin' match that could be imagined, that wasn't her fault, nor his'n either. God made 'em both, an' for all I know He may have fetched 'em together, an' in makin' a mess o' that He didn't act no wuss than in lettin' some other folks—folks that I know about—live a lifetime without any sort o' try at the game. Now, jest shet up, an' he'p me tote this sad thing through. I got to go set the table for them folks, an' then I'll slide into bed. Whar do you intend to sleep? That's what I wanted to see you about. That crowd has got yore room. I can lay you a pallet down on the floor in the kitchen. It would be sort o' hard, but—”

“I'm going to stay outside,” he told her. “I'm going down to the haystack. The house is too hot, anyway; I couldn't go to sleep in there with all that ding-dong and racket.”

“Well, I'm goin' in,” answered Amanda, who was really not listening to his observations. “It won't hurt you to sleep out once on such a warm night, anyway, an' they are making' a lot o' noise. They don't get many such chances through the year. It is the fust time I've fixed for young folks in a long time. Thar's one pair in thar”—Amanda tittered—“that will set up housekeepin' inside o' six months. Mark my predictions. I ketched 'em a-huggin' on the front steps as I come out.”

When his aunt left him Paul threw himself back on the grass and gazed up at the sky and the far-off blinking stars. How unreal seemed the dead face and stark form of his father as he had last looked upon it! Could it be actually all that was left of the gentle, kindly and patient parent who had always been so dear? Whence had flown the soft, halting voice, the flash of the eye, the only caressing touch Paul had ever known? That—that thing in there boxed and ready for burial was all there ever was, or ever could be again, of a wonderfully appealing personality, and to-morrow even that would sink out of sight forever and forever.

There was an audible footfall at the fence near the farther side of the cottage. Paul sat up and stared through the semi-darkness. It was a tall, slender figure of a man in a broad-brimmed hat. He was cautiously moving along the fence, as if trying to look into the room where the corpse lay. Suddenly a stream of light from within fell on his face. It was Jeff Warren. Paul sprang to his feet and stood panting, his muscles drawn.

“Don't, don't!” a voice within him seemed to caution him. “Not now—not now! Be ashamed!” At this juncture some one called out in a low, subdued tone:

“Is that you, Jeff?”

“Yes, Andy. Kin I come in thar with you all?”

“I dunno; wait a minute, Jeff.” Andrew Warner emerged from the shadow of the house and advanced to the fence. “I railly don't believe I would, Jeff, if I was you. We've got a-plenty, an' they all intend to spend the night.”

“I see, I see. Well, I didn't know how you was fixed, an' I heard you all a-singin' clean across the bottom. Say, Andy, Mrs. Rundel ain't in thar with you, is she?”

“No, we hain't any of us seed 'er; she's been shet up tight all day.”

There was a noticeable pause. Paul crept closer and stood behind a trunk of an apple-tree, the branches of which, laden with unripe fruit, almost touched the ground. He could still see the two men, and their voices were quite audible.

“I see, I see.” Jeff Warren was speaking now. “Have you heard anybody say—do you happen to know, Andy, how she is—takin' it?”

“Purty hard, purty hard, it looks like, Jeff. We've heard 'er cryin' an' takin' on several times; she seems powerful upset.”

“I see, I see,” Warren repeated, and Paul saw him lean toward his companion. “Say, Andy, I want you to do me a favor, if you will. I want you to git Mrs. Rundel to come out here a minute—jest a minute. You needn't let on to anybody else. The little woman must be awful troubled, an' me an' her are powerful good friends. I reckon if you told 'er I was out here, maybe she—”

Paul saw the other man turn his head and stand, staring irresolutely at the house. “I can't do that, Jeff,” he was heard to say presently. “That may be all right from the way you look at it, but I don't want no hand in such. If I was you, I'd wait—that's all, I'd wait. Out of respect for what folks would say or think, I'd put it off. Seems to me like she'd want that 'erse'f—in fact, I'm shore any sensible woman would.”

“All right, Andy, all right!” Warren answered, awkwardly, as his hand tugged at his mustache. “I was jest sorter bothered, that's all. I'll take yore advice. I know you are a friend an' mean well. I'll go home an' git to bed. As you say, I kin afford to wait. What surprises me is to hear you say she's takin' on. I reckon she's sorter upset by havin' a death in the house. Rafe was at the end o' his string, anyway; you know that as well as I do.”

“If the poor fellow had lived he would have called you to taw,” was the significant and yet not unfriendly reply. “The devil's light was in his eye, Jeff. Rafe Rundel was talkin' a lot an' growin' wuss an' wuss.”

“I knowed all that, too,” Warren was heard to say. “His wife kept me posted. Well, well, so long, Andy! I'll git to bed.”

“Not now, not now!” Paul's inner voice cautioned, as with actual lips, and invisible hands seemed to detain him. “Wait, wait; there is plenty of time!” He leaned against the tree and saw Warren's form disappear in the starlight. The man's confident whistle came back on the hot, still air as he strode along the road, becoming more and more indistinct in the misty distance.

Paul went down to the hay-field, looking here and there for a bed to lie upon. Presently he found a heap of freshly cut, succulent clover, full of the crushed perfume of the white and pink blossoms, and damp and cool with the dew. Upon this lair he sank, his tense young face upturned to the stars. How he loathed the silly woman who had borne him! How he detested the happy-go-lucky man who had caught her fancy! How he yearned for the living presence of the dead! His throat felt tight. Unshed tears seemed to trickle down within him. There was a dull aching about his heart. Again, as in a dream, the gentle face of Ethel Mayfield came before him. Her voice was as sweet and soothing as transcendent music. The lovely child had said she was going to pray for him. Perhaps even now she was doing so; and she had declared that prayers were answered. The belief was silly. It was like an inexperienced little city girl to entertain such thoughts, yet what she had said and the way she had said it were strangely comforting. A fiercely fought sob broke within him. Tears swept down his cheeks and trickled into the clover. The pain within him lessened. He became drowsy. The vision of the child with her beautiful hair and eyes became an airy, floating thing; the heavens were full of sweet musical laughter. Ethel seemed to be taken up into a sunlit cloud, and for a moment was hidden from view. Then he saw her returning. She was not alone. Holding her hand was Ralph Rundel—Ralph Rundel transfigured, spirit-like, and yet himself. He was full of the glow of youth. There were no lines, no shadows in his face. His body was erect; he was smiling at his son in a fathomless, eternal way.

“If they tell you I'm dead, don't you believe a word of it,” he said. “For I ain't—I ain't!”

Paul awoke with a start. The moon was rising; the whole landscape was flooded with the pale light of a reflected day. Subdued laughter and the drone of voices came from the window of the room where the body lay.