"Do you suppose, Mis' Persis," said Dolly, after a few moments of grave thought, "do you suppose God made that weed grow on purpose to cure rattlesnake bites?"
"Of course he did," said Mis' Persis, as decidedly as if she had been a trained theologian, "that's what rattlesnake-weed was made fer; any fool can see that."
"It seems to me," said Dolly, "that it would have been better not to have the snakes, and then people wouldn't be bit at all—wouldn't it?"
"Oh, we don't know everything," said Mis' Persis; "come to that, there's a good many things that nobody knows what they's made fer. But the Indians used to say there was some cure grew for every sickness if only our eyes was opened to see it, and I expect it's so."
"Come, Dolly," said Nabby, "the sun is gettin' pretty low; I must hurry home to get supper."
Just then the bell of the distant meeting-house gave three tolling strokes, whereat all the three stopped talking and listened intently.
Of all the old Puritan customs none was more thrillingly impressive than this solemn announcement of a death, and this deliberate tolling out of the years of a finished life.
It was a sound to which every one, whether alone or in company, at work or in play, stopped to listen, and listened with a nervous thrill of sympathy.
"I wonder who that is?" said Nabby.
"Perhaps it's Lyddy Bascom," said Mis' Persis, "she's been down with typhus fever."