Jane's eyelids were drooping, and, thinking that she might sleep, Lizzie crept from the room. It was a long, sleepless night for Mrs. Trott. About every hour she would go to Jane, bend over her, and listen to her soft breathing. She was too inexperienced to know whether a decided change was taking place. She joyfully greeted the first gray streaks of daylight in the sky and began to watch for the coming of Mandy. Presently the servant came, accompanied by her husband, a lusty, middle-aged laborer, who simply tipped his hat and sat down on the sawhorse in the wood-yard.
"Jake say he 'low you may need er man about," Mandy explained. "How she comin' on?"
"Just the same, when I last saw her," Lizzie said. "Will you go in and see her?"
Mandy was in Jane's room several minutes. Then she came back, a serious and resigned look on her swarthy face.
"I was jes' in time," she said, stoically. "She opened 'er eyes, Mis' Trott, en' look' straight at me, en' smiled en' laughed, low-like. 'I done hat my share er fun,' she say. En' wid dat she fetched er big breath en' died. I didn't tetch 'er—no, ma'am, I didn't lay han's on 'er. Jake tol' me not ter. Jake say his maw tol' 'im dat 'twon't do ter tetch de corpse of any but dem dat's 'ceptable ter old St. Peter. Jake say dat de evil sperit is still housed up in de corruption, en' dat it will go inter any livin' flesh dat give it er chance. But somebody got ter dress 'er, Mis' Trott. It is a 'ooman's place. Dar is a black mid-wife 'cross town dat does all sorts er odd jobs. Jake say he think she would come. She got witch en' hoodoo charms, en' say ol' Nick en' all his imps cayn't faze 'er. Jake will go fer 'er ef you say so."
"Very well, very well," Lizzie consented. "And have him see the undertaker, too, please."
CHAPTER XLI
Martha Jane Eperson alighted from her brother's buggy before the gate at the Whaley farm-house. Mrs. Whaley came out and met her.
"I got your message," the visitor said, "and came in as quickly as I could. I had heard of John's death, and, as it is all over the country, I knew that Tilly had already heard it or had to be told."