“What nonsense! They did not shoot him! Where is he? I helped you; now you help me.”
The old woman laid her head down on her poor pillow. She began to cry once more about a decent burial. Whether she was trying to deceive, or whether her mind could not hold an idea more than a moment, it was hard to say.
Elizabeth walked to the door and looked out. The tall trees, the glimpses of sky, the brown earth covered with a carpet of pine needles and dead leaves—this was surely no place of execution! Only the loneliness and the dreadful sound were ominous; there was no bird’s song, even in the early morning, loud enough to make itself heard above the wild sobbing.
Elizabeth went back to the bed.
“Where is my brother?” she demanded. “They must have come to the house yesterday and compelled him to come with them.”
The old woman did not answer.
“They want a paper. Is it the paper that I wrote for you?”
The mention of the “testament” caught Mammy Sheldon’s attention.
“Don’t give it to them! They’ll take my money and bury me like a dog. Don’t give it to them; oh, please, oh, please!”
“I shan’t if you tell me what they have done with my brother.”