Just then I
heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the
parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the
bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing
the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his
shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond
where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and
then I run back across the room and in behind the door.
The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and
kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see
she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me. I
slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd make sure them
watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything
was all right. They hadn't stirred.
I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing
playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much
resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because
when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to
Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the
thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the
money 'll be found when they come to screw on the lid.
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