{{huckfp245.jpg}}

So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was crying

there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was mighty sorry for

you, Miss Mary Jane." ssssssssss

It made my eyes water a little, to remember her crying there all by herself

in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own roof, shaming

her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her, I see the water

come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says:

"Good-bye -- I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if I

don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you, and I'll think of you a many

and a many a time, and I'M pray for you, too!" -- and she was gone.

Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more

nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same -- she was just that kind.

She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion -- there warn't no back-

down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she

had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of

sand. It sounds like flattery, but it ain't no flattery. And when it comes to

beauty -- and goodness too -- she lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since

that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since,

but I reckon I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her

saying she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good

for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust.

Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see

her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says:

"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that you,

all goes to see sometimes?" ssssssssss

They says: ssssssssss

"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly."

"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she

told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry -- one of them's

sick."

"Which one?" ssssssssss

"-- I don't know; leastways I kinder forget; but I think it's"??

ssssssssss

 [245]