I never saw her
myself to speak to after that day."
"I expect nowadays, if such a thing happened, she'd have gone
out West to her uncle's folks or up to Massachusetts and had a
change, an' come home good as new. The world's bigger an' freer
than it used to be," urged Mrs. Fosdick.
"No," said her friend. "'Tis like bad eyesight, the mind of
such a person: if your eyes don't see right there may be a remedy,
but there's no kind of glasses to remedy the mind. No, Joanna was
Joanna, and there she lays on her island where she lived and did
her poor penance. She told mother the day she was dyin' that she
always used to want to be fetched inshore when it come to the last;
but she'd thought it over, and desired to be laid on the island, if
'twas thought right. So the funeral was out there, a Saturday
afternoon in September. 'Twas a pretty day, and there wa'n't
hardly a boat on the coast within twenty miles that didn't head for
Shell-heap cram-full o' folks an' all real respectful, same's if
she'd always stayed ashore and held her friends.
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