It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says:
“_Good_-bye. I’m going to do everything just as you’ve told me;and if I don’t ever see you again,I sha’n’t ever forget you and I’ll think of you a many and a many a time,and I’ll _pray_ for you, too!”—and she was gone.
Pray for me!I reckoned if she knowed me she’d take a job that was more nearer her size.But I bet she done it,just the same—she was just that kind.She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion—there warn’t no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain’t no flattery. And when it comes to beauty—and goodness, too—she lays over them all. I hain’t ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain’t ever seen her since, but I reckon I’ve thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray for _her_, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or bust.
Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon;because nobody see her go.When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:
“What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?”
They says:
“There’s several; but it’s the Proctors, mainly.”
“That’s the name,” I says; “I most forgot it. Well,Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a dreadful hurry—one of them’s sick.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it’s—”
“Sakes alive, I hope it ain’t _Hanner?_”
“I’m sorry to say it,” I says,“but Hanner’s the very one.”
“My goodness, and she so well only last week!Is she took bad?”
“It ain’t no name for it.They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane said,and they don’t think she’ll last many hours.”
“Only think of that, now!What’s the matter with her?”
I couldn’t think of anything reasonable,right off that way, so I says:
“Mumps.”
“Mumps your granny!They don’t set up with people that’s got the mumps.”
“They don’t, don’t they?You better bet they do with _these_ mumps.These mumps is different. It’s a new kind,Miss Mary Jane said.”
“How’s it a new kind?”
“Because it’s mixed up with other things.”
“What other things?”
“Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas,and consumption, and yaller janders, and brain-fever,and I don’t know what all.”
“My land!And they call it the _mumps?_”
“That’s what Miss Mary Jane said.”
“Well, what in the nation do they call it the _mumps_ for?”
“Why, because it _is_ the mumps.That’s what it starts with.”
“Well, ther’ ain’t no sense in it.A body might stump his toe, and take pison,and fall down the well, and break his neck,and bust his brains out,and somebody come along and ask what killed him,and some numskull up and say, ‘Why,he stumped his _toe_.’ Would ther’ be any sense in that?_No_. And ther’ ain’t no sense in _this_, nuther. Is it ketching?”
“Is it _ketching?_ Why, how you talk. Is a _harrow_ catching—in the dark?If you don’t hitch on to one tooth,you’re bound to on another, ain’t you?And you can’t get away with that tooth without fetching the whole harrow along, can you?Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a harrow,as you may say—and it ain’t no slouch of a harrow,nuther, you come to get it hitched on good.”
“Well, it’s awful, _I_ think,” says the hare-lip.“I’ll go to Uncle Harvey and—”
“Oh, yes,” I says, “I _would_. Of _course_ I would.I wouldn’t lose no time.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you?”
“Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see.Hain’t your uncles obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can?And do you reckon they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by yourselves?_You_ know they’ll wait for you. So fur, so good.Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he?Very well, then; is a _preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk?is he going to deceive a _ship clerk?_—so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard?Now _you_ know he ain’t. What _will_ he do, then?Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s a great pity,but my church matters has got to get along the best way they can;for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps,and so it’s my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she’s got it.’ But never mind, if you think it’s best to tell your uncle Harvey—”
“Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane’s got it or not?Why, you talk like a muggins.”
“Well, anyway, maybe you’d better tell some of the neighbors. ”
“Listen at that, now.You do beat all for natural stupidness.Can’t you _see_ that _they’d_ go and tell?Ther’ ain’t no way but just to not tell anybody at _all_. ”
“Well, maybe you’re right—yes, I judge you _are_ right.”
“But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone out a while,anyway, so he won’t be uneasy about her?”
“Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that.She says, ‘Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss,and say I’ve run over the river to see Mr.’—Mr.—what _is_ the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of?—I mean the one that—”
“Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain’t it?”
“Of course; bother them kind of names,a body can’t ever seem to remember them, half the time,somehow. Yes, she said,say she has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had it than anybody else; and she’s going to stick to them till they say they’ll come, and then, if she ain’t too tired, she’s coming home; and if she is, she’ll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don’t say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps—which’ll be perfectly true, because she _is_ going there to speak about their buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself.”
“All right,” they said,and cleared out to lay for their uncles,and give them the love and the kisses,and tell them the message.