"I dunno how long I set there list'nin' to 'em movin' 'round overhead, an' wonderin' what was goin' on; but fin'ly I heard a step on the stair an' I went out into the entry, an' it was Mis' Jones. 'How be they?' I says.
"'We don't quite know yet,' she says. 'The little boy is a nice formed little feller,' she says, 'an' them childern very often grow up, but he is very little,' she says.
"'An' how 'bout my wife?' I says.
"'Wa'al,' she says, 'we don't know jest yet, but she is quiet now, an' we'll hope fer the best. If you want me,' she says, 'I'll come any time, night or day, but I must go now. The doctor will stay all night, an' the nurse will stay till you c'n git some one to take her place,' an' she went home, an'," declared David, "you've hearn tell of the 'salt of the earth,' an' if that woman wa'n't more on't than a hoss c'n draw down hill, the' ain't no such thing."
"Did they live?" asked John after a brief silence, conscious of the bluntness of his question, but curious as to the sequel.
"The child did," replied David; "not to grow up, but till he was 'twixt six an' seven; but my wife never left her bed, though she lived three four weeks. She never seemed to take no int'rist in the little feller, nor nothin' else much; but one day—it was Sunday, long to the last—she seemed a little more chipper 'n usual. I was settin' with her, an' I said to her how much better she seemed to be, tryin' to chirk her up.
"'No,' she says, 'I ain't goin' to live.'
"'Don't ye say that,' I says.
"'No,' she says, 'I ain't, an' I don't care.'
"I didn't know jest what to say, an' she spoke agin: