Part 47

"An' all out o' the air somethin' says to me, Now--now--like it will when you get so's you listen. I always think it's like the Lord had pressed His bell somewheres for help in His housekeepin'--oh, because how He needs it!

"So I says, ''Leven, you never see anybody dead before. What's the differ'nce between her an' you?'

"'She can't move,' 'Leven says, starin' down.

"'Yes, sir,' s'I, 'that's it. She's through doin' the things she was born to do, an' you ain't.'

"With that 'Leven looks at me.

"'I can't do nothin',' she says again.

"'Why, then,' says I, brisk, 'you're as good as dead, an' we'd best bury you, too. What do you think the Lord wants you 'round for?'

"An' she didn't say nothin', only stood fingerin' the shroud she wore.

"'Here,' s'I, then, 'is the comb. Here is Jennie's picture. The pins is in her hair. Take it down an' do it over. There's somethin' to do an' ease her mother about Jennie not lookin' natural.'

"An' with that I marched myself out an' shut the door.

"Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb was high-eyebrows on the other side of it, an' they come at me like tick lookin' for tock.

"'Well,' s'I, 'it is Jennie's shroud she's wearin'. But I guess we'll hev to bury 'Leven in it to get it underground. I won't tell her.'

"I give 'em to understand as much as I wanted they should know,--not includin' exactly how I met 'Leven. An' we consulted, vague an' emphatic, like women will. There wasn't time to make another one an' do it up an' all. An' anyway, I was bound not to let the poor thing know what she'd done. The others hated to, too--I donno if you'll know how we felt? I donno but mebbe you sense things like that better when you live in a little town.

"'Well said!' Mis' Amanda bursts out after a while, 'I'm reg'lar put to it. I can scare up an excuse, or a meal, or a church entertainment on as short notice as any, but I declare if I ever trumped up a shroud. An' you know an' I know,' she says, 'poor Jennie'd be the livin' last to want to take it off'n the poor girl.'

"'An',' s'I, 'even if I should give her somethin' else to put on in the mornin', an' sly this into the coffin on Jennie, I donno's I'd want to. The shroud,' s'I, ''s been wore.'

"Mis' Holcomb sort o' kippered--some like a shiver.

"'I donno what it is about its bein' wore first,' s'she, 'but I guess it ain't so much what it is as what it ain't. Or sim'lar.'

"An' I knew what she meant. I've noticed that, often.

"In the end we done what I'd favoured from the beginnin': We ask' Mis' Crapwell if we couldn't bury Jennie in her white mull.

"'A shroud,' says Mis' Crapwell, grievin', 'made by a dressmaker with buttons?'

"'It's the part o' Jennie that wore it before that'll wear it now,' I says, reasonable, 'an' her soul never was buttoned into it anyways. An' it won't be now.'

"An' after a while we made her see it, an' that was the first regular dress ever wore to a buryin' in Friendship, by the one that was the one.

"I'll never forget when 'Leven come out o' that room, after she'd got through. We all went in--Mis' Crapwell an' Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb an' I, an' some more. An' I took 'Leven back in with me. An' as soon as I see Jennie I see it was Jennie come back--hair just as natural as if it was church Sunday mornin' an' her in her pew. We all knew it was so, an' we all said so, an' Mis' Crapwell, she just out cryin' like she'd broke her heart. An' when the first of it was over, she went acrost to 'Leven, an' 'Oh,' s'she, 'you've give her back to me. You give her back. God bless you!' she says to her. An' when I looked at 'Leven, I see the 'Huh?' look wasn't there at all. But they was a little somethin' on her face like she was proud, an' didn't quite want to show it--along of her features or complexion or somethin' never havin' had it spread on 'em before.

"Nex' mornin' o' course 'Leven put on the shroud again. I must say it give me the creeps to see her wearin' it, even if it did look like everybody's dresses. I donno what it is about such things, but they make somethin' scrunch inside o' you. Like when they got a new babtismal dish for the church, an' the minister's sister took the old one for a cake dish.

"S'I, to 'Leven, after breakfast:--

"We're goin' to line Jennie's grave this mornin'. I guess you'd like to go with us, wouldn't you?'

But I see her face with the old look, like the back o' somethin', or like you'd rubbed down the page when the ink was wet, an' had blurred the whole thing unreadable. An' I judged that, like enough, she knew nothin' whatever about grave-linin', done civilized.

"'I mean, I thought mebbe you'd like to help us some,' I says.