An' "to-morrow we'll bury him" were words that all that long, lonesome, hot day kept soundin' in my ears as if some one was callin' 'em out with the tickin' of the clock. "Bury him"—an' Micah dead only a few hours! I couldn't believe it, an' would stop an' listen for his whistle at the barn, his talk to the horses, his rattle at the pump, his footfall at the door, until, crazy with waitin,' I'd go over to the bed, pull back the sheet, an' in the still face read why I should never hear those happy sounds again—never again.
Ah, well! The sun went down at last; the long, dreary day was ended, an' in the twilight came back my good neighbor with motherly Mrs. Challen—an'—an'—it hurts me even now to tell it—the coffin for. Micah. In it those two good people softly placed him, an' all that night I watched its shape between me an' the window.
"MRS. CHALLEN HELD ME IN HER ARMS."
The next day, in the mornin', under the trees in the little grove across from the house, my Micah was laid to rest forever—placed so that when I looked out of the window or the door I could see the mound of earth between the fence of tree limbs woven around it, an' seem' it, know that in that spot was buried one who in my young life was more to me than earth or heaven. I never understood how I got through those two terrible days. I can't remember distinctly. It's all dream-like, as if in a thin, grayish fog. I know that Mrs. Challen held me in her arms—for I was a fragile, girlish thing—like a mother; that the minister said words I never heard; that the strange faces of a few farm people from miles away looked at me; that the grasshoppers were under foot an' in the air an' even on the coffin; but, above all else, I recall, movin' among the other people like somebody from another world, the tall, straight form and sad face of neighbor King. It was neighbor King who managed everything from the minute his hand fell upon my shoulder that mornin' until the last limb was knit into the rough fence around the lonely grave. What would have happened to me without him?
I'm only a woman—one of the weak ones, I s'pose—for I broke down entirely the night after poor Micah was buried, Mrs. Challen said I went crazy; that I'd kneel down at the side of the bed an' cry as if my heart would break; that again an' again I went to the front door an' looked up an' down the lonely, treeless road, an' then to the back door, where I would call "Micah!" "Micah!"—just as I'd been used to callin' him to his meals, an' I'd listen, with my hand to my ear, to hear him answer. Last of all, worst of all, she said, I went staggerin' across the street, an', pushin' through the rough fence, threw myself upon the grave an' begged of the Great Father to give me back the dead that had been so much to me when he was living. I don't wonder at my losing my head. Micah an' I were both so young, an' we had loved each other so much, as common folks often do, that to lose him was robbin' my life of all its brightness an' sweetness.
The mornin' after the funeral neighbor King was round bright an' early, findin' me red-eyed an' weakly.
"Well! well! Mrs. Pyncheon," he began, in what was for him a cheery voice, "what are we a-goin' to do now besides summin' up a little? Are we goin' to our relations?"
"No, Mr. King," I answered, havin' thought over the matter a little, "no, I'm goin' to stay here. I have no relation I want to bother. Here's the place for me an' Hannah. The farm is paid for, an' all I have is here an'—an' over there," turnin' my face to the spot where Micah lay. "If the grasshoppers 'ull let me, I stay."
