powder. I told Aunt Laura to get Bertha's, when she commenced fussing, for I had passed her room and saw that she had dressed in a big hurry and left the bureau unlocked, the room being very hot and dark, the baby being asleep, on account of the flies. She hushed then and said for me to go down and tell him that she would be out in a few minutes, which I did. I left him on the porch fanning while I went out to a little place I have under the porch where it is nice and quiet and they can't find you reading fairy tales when they want you for something; but you can hear them talking.

Pretty soon Aunt Laura came out, and in her dressed-up voice commenced telling him how sorry she was that she kept him waiting. But before she had more than got it said he asked her excited-like what was the matter with her. It seemed like when he got excited she did too, so she grabbed her stomach (not that I saw her, but I know she always does it here lately when she gets mad or scared) and said:

"Oh, my heart! It must be the heart disease!"

He interrupted her again, a heap too quick and sharp for a preacher:

"Your heart nothing! Go and look at your face!"

That was more than I could stand, so out from under the porch I slid, just in time to see Aunt Laura, with her face as red as the Indians they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could look at herself in the hat-rack looking-glass. She gave one tremendous yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying in from where they were. It wasn't a minute before me and Brother Sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in off of the back porch, and Dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning over the banisters to see what was the matter.

"It's my death stroke," Aunt Laura said, just like she knew what she was talking about. "The doctor's books say it comes on this way," she kept on, while the preacher fanned her and we were all flying around doing things for her, and me standing still wondering how on earth come her face so fiery red. "Thank Heaven, I die in the conviction of having lived a good life, and willed all my money to the only member of my family that has ever treated me with any respect." This did look kinder like the truth, for the baby was the only member of the family which was crying over this sad occasion; but she was very loud and hard.

"I've been visited by Providence with a curious family," poor Aunt Laura said, looking very mad toward father and mother, "but they will soon have cause to regret all their strange ways with me. If there was one person in this world that did care for me, to that one should my will be changed, for there is little consolation in leaving your property to a baby."

Brother Sheffield here spoke up and said as Aunt Laura "so fully realized her hopeless condition he thought they better have some conversation together as to her spiritual welfare. He desired a few moments alone with her."

"Yes," said Aunt Laura right quick, "private conversation. My soul's safety is not to be discussed in the presence of my enemies!"

So out we all got, me along with the rest of them, which was a great disappointment, for I could have learned a good deal if there had been any way of staying in there. They talked a long time and we could hear a few remarks now and then, being as we couldn't think of anything to say ourselves, and it was very still on the porch. Once or twice we heard her say very decided-like that indeed she wasn't mistaken, for every book she had read on the subject said it was exactly that kind of a symptom. And then he would talk some, and one time he seemed to doubt her word so that she fairly yelled out, the way she does when he ain't around: "Can you doubt the hideous mark of death that has this hour appeared upon my face? Isn't it proof that my flesh is being prepared for the worms?" which did sound pitiful and scary, too, it being kinder dark on the porch. This seemed to do the work, for in a few minutes she called us in and told us that Brother Sheffield had asked her to marry him, and although she had never before considered him in the light of a lover, still she was going to do it if the Lord let her live an hour, while father could ride over for a preacher and she could change her will. Brother Sheffield was crying like he does when he is calling mourners, and his voice would hardly talk, but he managed to say:

"Yes, she has done me the honor to accept me; she, a woman of intellect and wealth, and me, only a poor, humble worker——" He couldn't get any further, but I had heard it so many times before that I knew it was "humble worker of the vineyard," though father says he is more of a hungry eater of the barnyard.

When Aunt Laura mentioned about being married in an hour Brother Sheffield seemed to take a second thought, and spoke up kinder weak and said he didn't know whether it was exactly right to be married on Sunday or not. When Aunt Laura saw him begin to weaken it brought on such a hard spell that she laid back on the sofa with her eyes shut, like she was sure enough dead. This really scared mother, and she told Mammy Lou, who had her head poked in at the back door, to run for some water. Mammy brought the bucket in off the back porch and commenced sousing it over Aunt Laura by the handsful, which didn't bring her to; but a strange thing happened, which, if it wasn't me that saw it, anybody would think it was a story, but I cross my heart that the water that dribbled down off her face on to her clean waist was pink!

"Jumping Jerusalem!" father said, "the heart disease is washing off!" This made Aunt Laura open her eyes, and by that time Mammy Lou had got a towel and was wiping her face off all over, which seemed to make it look natural again. Not one of us knew what to think of such a strange disease till all of a sudden I remembered Bertha's bad habit! And then I knew it was all off with Aunt Laura and the marrying. It wasn't very long till they all caught on to what it was on her face; and the worst part of it was that Brother Sheffield said he believed she did it a-purpose. He rose up very proud, and looking kinder relieved and said he could never marry a woman who would "defile herself with the trade-mark of Jezebel."

When he commenced throwing up Jezebel to Aunt Laura she threw up Esau to him, which sold himself for a "mess of pottage," though this never did sound lady-like to me, even coming from the pulpit. So Esau went out and drove straight home, and Jezebel went up-stairs and packed her trunk to go home early in the morning, never having been so insulted by relatives before in her life.

So the marrying is off and the baby is disinherited, which will be a relief to it when it gets big enough to understand. But the worst part is that Aunt Laura blames the whole thing on me, for she says I had her ruination in mind when I sicked her on to that little left-handed drawer. Of course it ain't so, but it proves that people ought to raise the blind and be sure it's whitening they're spreading on, even if the baby is asleep.