“An’ it––it––must be––”
“True, sir.”
My uncle sighed; and––for I know his loving-kindness––’twas a sigh that spoke a pain at heart.
“It must be true,” reiterated the wretched parson, now, it seemed, beset by doubt. “It must be true!”
“Why, by the dear God ye serve, parson!” roared my uncle, with healthy spirit, superior in faith, “I knows ’tis true, Bible or St. John’s noospaper!”
Aunt Esther put her gray head in at the door. “Is the kettle b’ilin’?” says she.
The kettle was boiling.
“Ah!” says she––and disappeared.
“‘Though I walk,’” the parson repeated, his thin, 173 freckled hands clasped, “‘through the valley of the shadow of death!’”
There was no doctor at Twist Tickle: so the parson lay dead––poor man!––of the exposure of that night, within three days, in the house of Parson Stump....