descended down onto 'em at such a time.

   But Cephas said he wuz jest dispatchin' a messenger for us when we arrove, for, he said, "in a time of trouble, then wuz the time, if ever, that a man wanted his near relations clost to him."

   And he said "we had took a load offen him by appearin' jest as we did, for there would have been some delay in gettin' us there, if the messenger had been dispatched."

   He said "that mornin' he had felt so bad that he wanted to die—it seemed as if there wuzn't nothin' left for him to live for; but now he felt that he had sunthin' to live for, now his relatives wuz gathered round him."

   Josiah shed tears to hear Cephas go on. I myself didn't weep none, but I wuz glad if we could be any comfort to 'em, and told 'em so.

   And I told Sally Ann, that wuz Cephas'ses wife, that I would do anything I could to help 'em. And she said everything wuz a-bein' done that wuz necessary. She didn't know of but one thing that wuz likely to be overlooked and neglected, and that wuz the crazy bedquilt. She said "she would love to have that finished to throw over a lounge in the settin'-room, that wuz frayed out on the edges, and if I felt like it, it

    would

   be a great relief to her to have me take it right offen her hands and finish it."

   So I took out my thimble and needle (I always carry such necessaries with me, in a huzzy made expressly for that purpose), and I sot down and went to piecin' up. There wuz seventeen blocks to piece up, each one crazy as a loon to look at, and it wuz all to set together.

   She had the pieces, for she had been off on a visitin' tower the week before, and collected of 'em.

   So I sot in quiet and the big chair in the settin'-room, and pieced up, and see the preparations goin' on round us.

   I found that Cephas'ses folks lived in a house big and showy-lookin', but not so solid and firm as I had seen.

   It wuz one of the houses, outside and inside, where more pains had been took with the porticos and ornaments than with the underpinnin'.

   It had a showy and kind of a shaky look. And I found that that extended to Cephas'ses business arrangements. Amongst the other ornaments of his buildin's wuz mortgages, quite a lot 

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