"There came a month that everything crowded. I thought of Nan, but couldn't go up, till one day Tom Owens came in—you know him—an' he said, 'It's all up with Charley Calkins.'
"'How?' I said.
"'Smallpox,' he said, 'an' Nan's dropped everything to nurse him. She'd left there, they said, an' the woman he brought in to take her place cut the minute she found he had the smallpox. He won't live, they say.'
"This was before they were so particular about carrying them off to hospital. The house was cleared an' the saloon shut up, but Nan was allowed to stay because she'd been exposed anyway, an' it was no use to send her off. He had it the worst way, an' he'd scream an' swear he wouldn't die, an' strike out at her, though he couldn't see, his face and eyes bein' all closed up. It didn't last but a week, and then he died, but Nan hadn't taken off her clothes or hardly slept one instant. He was stupid at the last, an' when she saw he was gone she fell on the floor in a faint; an' when she come to the blood poured from her mouth, an' all they could do was to take her off to the hospital. She didn't take the smallpox, but it was a good while before she could be let to see anybody. When they thought it was safe she sent for me, but it was hard to think it could be the same Nan I'd known. Every breath come with pain, and she was wasted to a shadow, but she smiled at me an' drew me down to kiss her. 'You see, I sha'n't be troubled or make trouble much longer,' she said, 'but oh, if I only could rest!'
"Poor soul! She couldn't breathe lyin' down, nor sleep but a bit at a time, an' it was awful to have her goin' so, an' she not twenty.
"I knelt down by her. She had a little room to herself, for she had some money yet, and I prayed till I couldn't speak for crying. 'Nan, Nan!' I said, 'you're goin' straight to the next world, an' you've got to be judged. What will you do without a Saviour? Try to think about it.'
"She patted my hand as if I were the one to be quieted. 'Don't bother,' she said: 'I don't mind, an' you mustn't. If He's as good as you say He'll see that it's all right. I'm too tired to care: I only want to get through. There's nothing to live for, an' I'm glad it's 'most over. I want you to come every day, for it won't be long.'
"'Let me bring Jerry,' I said, but she only laughed. She'd known him at his hardest, an' couldn't realize he might be different; but after a week or two she let him come, an' she'd lie an' listen with a sort of wonder as she watched him. But nothing seemed to take hold of her. She looked like a flower lyin' there, an' you'd think her only a child, for they'd cut her hair, and it lay in little rings all over her head; an' Jerry just cried over her, to think that unless she hearkened she was lost. She liked to be read to, but you couldn't make her believe, somehow, that any of it was real. 'I'd believe it if I could,' she said, 'but why should I? I don't see why you do. It sounds good, but it doesn't seem to mean anything. Why hasn't anybody ever told me before?'
"'Try to believe, only try!' I'd say. 'Ask God to make you. He can, and He will if you only ask;' but all she'd say was, 'I don't seem to care enough. How can I? If it is true He will see about it.'
"That was only a day or two before the end. The opium, maybe, hindered her thinkin', but she looked quiet an' no sign of trouble between the coughing-times. The last night of all I stayed with her. They said she would go at daybreak, an' I sat an' watched an' prayed, beggin' for one word or sign that the Lord heard us. It never came, though. She opened her eyes suddenly from a half sleep, and threw out her hands. I took one, but she did not know me. She looked toward the east and smiled. 'Why! are you coming for me?' she said, and then fell back, but that look stayed—a smile as sweet as was ever on a mortal face. An' that's why I never can help sayin', 'Lord have mercy on her!' and do you wonder even when I know better? But—"