After the neighbor had been paid and departed Millie and the sick woman were left alone. “Millie,” said Aunt Rebecca, “you stay with me till I go. Ach, you needn’t tell me I’ll get well. I know I’m done for. I don’t want a lot o’ strangers pokin’ round in my things and takin’ care of me. I’m crabbit and they don’t have no patience.”
“Ach, you’ll be around again in no time,” said Millie cheerfully. “Don’t you worry. I’ll run everything just like it ought to be. I’ll tend you so good you’ll be up and about before you know it.”
“I’m not so easy fooled. I won’t get out of this room till I’m carried out, I know. My goodness, abody thinks back over a lot o’ things when you get right sick once! I made a will, Millie, and a pretty good one,” the sick woman laughed as if in enjoyment of a pleasant secret. Her nurse attributed the laughter to delirium. But Aunt Rebecca went on, astonishing the other woman more and deepening the conviction that the strange talk was due to flightiness.
“Yes, I made a will! Some people’ll say I was crazy, but you tell them for me I’m as sane as any one. My goodness, can’t abody do what abody wants with your own money? Didn’t I slave and scratch and skimp like everything all my life! And you bet I’m goin’ to give that there money just where I want!”
“Ach, people always fuss about wills. It gives them something to talk about,” said Millie, thinking argument useless.
“Yes, it won’t worry me. I won’t hear it. I have it all fixed where and how I want to be buried, and all about the funeral. I want to have a nice funeral, eat in the meeting-house, and have enough to eat, too. I was to a funeral once and everything got all before all the people had eaten. I was close livin’, but I ain’t goin’ to be close dead.”
“Now you go to sleep,” ordered Millie. “You can tell me the rest some other time.”
That evening as Millie sat on a low rocker by the bedside, the dim flare of an oil lamp flickering on the faces of the two women, Aunt Rebecca told more of the things she was so eager to detail while strength lasted.
“Jonas always thought that if I lived longest half of what I have should go back to the Miller people, his side of the family. But I tell you, Millie, none of them ever come to see me except one or two who come just for the money. They was wishin’ long a’ready I’d die and they’d get it. But Jonas didn’t put that in the will. He left me everything and he did say once I could do with it what I want. So I made a will and I’m givin’ them Millers five thousand dollars in all and the rest--well, you’ll find out what I done with the rest after I’m gone. I never had much good out my money and I’m havin’ a lot of pleasure lyin’ here and thinkin’ what some people will do with what I leave them in my will. I had a lot of good that way a’ready since I’m sick. People will have something to talk about once when I die.”
And so the sick woman rambled on, while Millie thought the fever caused the strange words and paid little attention to their import. But, several weeks later, when the querulous old woman closed her eyes in her long, last sleep, Millie, who had nursed her so faithfully, remembered each detail of the funeral as Aunt Rebecca had told her and saw to it that every one was carried out.