"
"But you must get help, you know; you can never make them all comfortable
yourself alone."
"We'll see what I can do," he returned. "I ben't a bit willin' to let no
one do my work for me, I do assure you, sir."
"How many are there wanting your services?" I asked.
"There be fifteen of them now, and there be more, I don't doubt, on the
way."
"But you won't think of making separate graves for them all," I said. "They
died together: let them lie together."
The old man set down his tools, and looked me in the face with indignation.
The face was so honest and old, that, without feeling I had deserved it, I
yet felt the rebuke.
"How would you like, sir," he said, at length, "to be put in the same bed
with a lot of people you didn't know nothing about?"
I knew the old man's way, and that any argument which denied the premiss
of his peculiar fancy was worse than thrown away upon him. I therefore
ventured no farther than to say that I had heard death was a leveller.
"That be very true; and, mayhap, they mightn't think of it after they'd
been down awhile--six weeks, mayhap, or so.
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