she said, "I expect Mrs. Grumble's getting good care. But when a
body's dying, 'tisn't so much care you want, as salvation. I wouldn't
want any Jezebel hanging over my deathbed, Mrs. Tomkins, thank you."

Mrs. Tomkins, who attended each Sunday the little Baptist church at
Adams' Forge, did not believe that she and Mrs. Ploughman would meet in
heaven. However, she did not choose this moment to mention it. "It
may be as you say, Mrs. Ploughman," she remarked, "or it may be that
we've been too hard oh Mrs. Wicket. Mind you, I don't speak for her
life with that bad egg of Eben Wicket's. But we ought to forgive
others as we would have others forgive us."

"You needn't quote Gospels to me," declared Mrs. Ploughman; "I'm as
easy to forgive as the next one, where there's a reason for it. I
don't hold it against Mrs. Wicket that she drove my Noel to his death.
No. I forgive her for it. And I don't blame Mr. Jeminy for going off,
if he had a mind to, and leaving Mrs. Grumble to catch the pneumony."

"No," said Mrs. Tomkins.

"But there's this much queer," said Mrs. Ploughman: "The way she takes
on in the fever. She does nothing but call him back, Mrs. Tomkins.
'Mr. Jeminy,' she hollers, 'where's the old rascal?' she says. Then
she goes on about his being in some trouble, and she has to get him out
of it. 'He's in the toils,' she says; 'he's with the scarlet woman.'"

"My life!" exclaimed Mrs. Tomkins.

"I declare," said Mrs. Ploughman, "I wouldn't be Mrs. Wicket, or Miss
Beal, not for a thousand dollars."