t was late in the month of December when Little Wolf received from Mrs. Tinknor the following sad account of the Death Angel's visit to the old brown house:
"My dear child:
What I am about to write will give you great pain, for I know how dearly you loved poor old Daddy, and how it will grieve you to hear that you will never see him again in this world. He died on the morning of the fifteenth, after a short illness of ten days.
"Tom had been down on a visit and returned saying that Daddy was complaining of rheumatic pains, and he was much worse the day he left, and his wife was much concerned about him. As Tom urged it, I went down hoping to cheer up the old couple.
"When I arrived I found Daddy confined to his bed, and groaning with pain, while his wife and Fanny and several of the neighbors, were flying about, applying hot fomentations, and a variety of liniments. (It is astonishing how many busy feet one sick man can keep in motion.)
"I immediately sent for Dr. Goodrich, although Daddy's wife mentioned to me in confidence, that a 'parcel of old women were worth a dozen doctors who killed more than they cured; and Daddy himself managed to gasp out, ''Tween you an' me, Miss Tinknor a leetle good nussin is the most I need. Doctors can't cure rheumatiz.'
"However, he looked forward very anxiously to the Doctor's arrival. When he did come and prescribed the free use of brandy, all of Daddy's prejudices were at once aroused, and no persuasions could induce him to use 'the devil's pison outside or in.'
"I believe had he been stretched upon the rack he would have died rather than yield the point; for to the last, he adhered firmly to his total abstinence principles, and at the eleventh hour he entered his master's vineyard.
"It was beautiful indeed to witness the ministrations of little Fanny. From the first of his illness she wept over and prayed for him, and taught him, who had gone all his life long a hungry prodigal, the way to his Father's house. I never shall forget those lessons, which so sweetly fell from her childish lips and the joy that beamed in her speaking face, when Daddy at length appeared to have a clear understanding of her teachings.