Hattie House had no reasonable excuse for dying, but she managed to fool her mother:
"Hattie had blue eyes and light flaxen hair,
Her little heart was light and gay,
And she said to her mother that morning fair,
'Mother, can I go out and play?'
"Her mother tied her little bonnet on,
Not thinking it would be the last
She would ever see her dear little one
In this world, little Hattie House.
"She left the house, this merry little girl,
That bright and pleasant day—
She went out to play with two little girls
That were about her age.
"She was not gone but a little while
When they heard her playmates call—
Her friends hastened there to save the child,
But, alas, she was dead and gone.
"Those little girls will not forget
The day little Hattie died,
For she was with them when she fell in a fit,
While playing by their side."
Lois House, however, did not have to resort to any subterfuge. The divine Providence spared her the trouble. She had just married an exemplary young man, who "had courted her a long time in triumph and glee," and
"They loved each other dearly and never deceived,
But God he did part them, one which he laid low,
The other He left with his heart full of woe."
The last verse almost has a touch of poetry in it:
"They placed her fair form in the coffin so cold,
And placed there Joy's picture as they had been told;
They bore her to her grave, all were in sad gloom,
And gently laid her down to rest in her tomb."