He had a good heart," she said quietly, and in these words there was an accolade. "He was always willin' to do anything he could to help people when they needed it. And he wouldn't wait to be asked, neither! Why, didn't they tell it how he practically carried Dave Ingram on his back as they retreated from Antietam, rather than let him lay there and be taken!--Of course, he was strong- why, strong as a mule!" she cried. "He could stand anything.--They told it how he could march all day long, and then stay up all night nursin' the sick and tendin' to the wounded."
 She paused and shook her head. "I guess he'd seen some awful things," she said. "I reckon he'd been with many a poor feller when he breathed his last--they had to admit it, sir, when they came back!
 Now, they can laugh at him all they please, but they had to give him his due! Jim Alexander said, you know, he admitted it, 'Well, Rance has preached the comin' of the Lord and a better day upon the earth, and I reckon we've all laughed at him at times for doin' it--but let me tell you, now,' he says, 'he always practiced what he preached. If everybody had as good a heart as he's got, we'd have that better day he talks about right now!'"
 She sewed quietly for a moment, thrusting the needle through with her thimbled finger, drawing the thread through with a strong, pulling movement of her arm.
 "Now, child, I'm goin' to tell you something," she said quietly.
 "There are a whole lot of people in this world who think they're pretty smart--but they never find out anything. Now I suppose that there are lots of smarter people in the world than Rance--I guess they looked on him as sort of simple-minded--but let me tell you something! It's not always the smartest people who know the most--and there are things I could tell you--things I know about!" she whispered with an omened tone, then fell to shaking her head slightly again, her face contracted in a portentous movement--"Child! Child!... I don't know what you'd call it... what explanation you could give for it- but it's mighty strange when you come to think about it, isn't it?"
 "But what? What is it, Aunt Maw?" he demanded feverishly.
 She turned and looked him full in the face for a moment. Then she whispered: "He's been--Seen!... I Saw him once myself!... He's been Seen all through his life," she whispered again. "I know a dozen people who have Seen him," she added quietly. She stitched in silence for a time.
 "Well, I tell you," she presently said, "the first time that they Saw him he was a boy--oh! I reckon along about eight or nine years old at the time. I've heard father tell the story many's the time," she said, "and mother was there and knew about it, too. That was the very year that they were married, sir, that's exactly when it was," she declared triumphantly. "Well, mother and father were still livin' there in Zebulon, and old Bill Joyner was there, too. He hadn't yet moved into town, you know. Oh, it was several years after this before Bill came to Libya Hill to live, and father didn't follow him till after the war was over.... Well, anyway," she said, "Bill was still out in Zebulon, as I was sayin', and the story goes that it was Sunday morning. So after breakfast the whole crowd of them start out for church--all of them except old Bill, you know, and I reckon he had something else to do, or felt that it was all right for him to stay at home so long as all the others went.... Well, anyhow," she smiled, "Bill didn't go to church, but he saw them go, you know! He saw them go!" she cried. "He stood there in the door and watched them as they went down the road--father and Sam and mother, and your great-uncle Rance. Well, anyway, when they had gone--I reckon it was some time later--Bill went out into the kitchen. And when he got there he saw the lid of the wool-box was open.