"But we wasn't prepared for the worst. A day or two before the wedding, in comes old Mis' Johnson, and says, 'Shut up the doors tight,' says she, 'and the winders. I've got something to tell you that'll make your hair rise up,' she says, whisperin'-like. So I shut the door, she a-workin' her hands together like one possessed. 'It's about Melindy,' she went on. 'He's been and got a tombstone for her.' 'Who?' asked I, as if I didn't know, but my knees knocked together and I felt a bit sick. 'Mortimer Barbour,' says she. 'My grandson, Johnnie, was after a bird's nest in a tree over in his yard. The limb broke, and down he went right onto the roof of the old cornhouse, that hasn't been used for years. It went in under him like tinder, and as soon as he could pick himself up and found no bones broke, what should he see but a new white gravestone, a-settin' up quite pert in a corner against some rubbish. He went up to it, and he says as true as the Bible he saw 'Melinda Barbour' cut on it, and the date she is a-goin' to die.' 'I don't believe it,' says I, but I was all a-faint, and had to go and make us each a cup of tea, so we could bear up under it.
"As soon as I said I didn't believe it Mis' Johnson said we'd go ourselves and see. And we did go, Mortimer bein' away in the fields, and got into the cornhouse. It was towards dark, and we shook with the cold, though it was a warm day in June. We'd brought a bit of candle with us, and Mis' Johnson lit it, and then we saw—land sakes, child, how scairt you look; don't get so near the fire, honey, you'll be all ablaze. Where was I? Oh, we saw the stone, just as Johnnie said, a real gravestone of white marble, and on it the name 'Melindy Barbour,' with the date 'Sept. 5, 18—,' below it. But the rest we couldn't make out. 'He's going to let her live three months, may heaven forgive him,' says old Mis' Johnson, meanin' different from what she said.
"The next day I went to Melindy, and told her the whole truth. And would you believe it, she said she thought Mis' Johnson and I had no business prying about other people's affairs? 'If he had bought me a thousand gravestones I'd have him just the same,' says she. So they was married the next day in the meeting-house, but Melindy was white as a ghost, and she trembled so she could hardly walk. They went right away on the cars, and we threw some old shoes after 'em, but all the wishin' of joy was make believe, and I never saw a bride with such a white, set face, never looking at her husband nor yet at us.
"They was away nearly three months; then they came back to the old house. But folks said they wasn't happy, that she was as cold as a stone, and he was always at his books and old insects. One day I got a letter askin' me to come and see her. She was lyin' down on a lounge when I got there, white and so thin, with big eyes with a sorry, hungry look in 'em. But she had on a smart gown, and was as pretty as a picture. As soon as we'd shaken hands and I'd taken off my bonnet and mantilla, she says, 'Do you know what day to-morrow is?' Then I thought it up, and said it was the 5th of September. 'The day I am to die,' she says in a soft, quiet way. Then I up and asked her if Mortimer had been ill-treatin' her, but she put up her finger, and said, 'Not a word to my husband; he doesn't know I know it.' Then she said he was awful good to her, but she couldn't get that gravestone out of her head day or night. All at once it came to me how matters was; she'd been too proud to give him up, besides her likin' him, too; and she'd been too proud to tell him about it; and so betwixt the two the poor child was almost beat out. She asked if I would go out to the cornhouse with her to see the stone. She wanted to see it and was afraid to go alone.
"Then a queer thing happened. Mortimer had come into the next room while she'd been talkin', and heard every word. I never saw anybody so stirred up as he was when he came in. 'Is that tombstone what has stood between us?' he said, and went on to explain that it had been ordered for his mother. He was such a bad writer that the stone cutter mistook the name Malviny for Melindy, and after the stone was half done it was found out, and they made him pay for it. So, as it was his, they brought it to him, and, not knowin' what to do with it, he'd just set it up in the cornhouse and forgot all about it. Melindy, she began to cry, and then they fell to huggin' and kissin' each other, as if they hadn't met for years. I tried to put in a word to ca'm 'em, but they saw me without seeing me, and heard me without hearing me, so I put on my bonnet and mantilla and came away and left 'em.
"After that? Dear me, they was the happiest couple you ever saw. They used the gravestone for a front doorstep, wrong side up, and it was real pretty. Melindy was dretful proud of him, and believed every word he wrote about them bugs and beetles, just as his mother did, which only goes to show that the old sayin' is true, that love is blind."
The Other One.
BY A. H. GIBSON.