It seems aunt Persis had really become very crazy indeed; and that dear, sweet, patient, good Martha had been trying to keep it a secret; but it couldn't be done any longer. She acted so badly that Martha couldn't manage her. When Squire Allen went into the house, she was stirring "Number Six" into some corn-meal for the hens, and was very angry with him because he made her leave off and go to bed.
Father and mother had to take care of her till uncle John came; but she was as sick as she was crazy, and did not live till October.
I remember looking at her beautiful, white face, the first I ever saw in death, and thinking,—
"How glad auntie is to be so still."
No one told me she was tired, but somehow I knew it, for she was always flying about in such a hurry, and I was sure it must rest her very much to go to sleep. I received then a pleasant, peaceful impression of death, which I never forgot.
Miss Rubie staid at Squire Allen's for some time, and taught Fel. Now she is a person whom you all know very well; but I shall not tell who she is till by and by.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LITTLE LIE-GIRL.
And now I will skip along to the next summer, and come to the dreadful lie I told about the hatchet. You remember it, Horace and Prudy, how I saw your uncle Ned's hatchet on the meat block, and heedlessly took it up to break open some clams, and then was so frightened that I dared not tell how I cut my foot. "O, mamma," said I, "my foot slipped, and I fell and hit me on something; I don't know whether 'twas a hatchet or a stick of wood; but I never touched the hatchet."