LITTLE JAKE 175 
Jake was so fond of it ; but it never cheered up, it 
missed him so. 
4 One night I come home feelin' dreary like, and 
there was a hankercher over the cage. Mother was 
cryin' ! It don't take much at such times to upset ye. 
I went and took it off, and what do ye think I see ? 
The bird was dead, with his breast agin the bars of 
the cage, just in the same way as when he used to 
watch for Jake. 
' 'Twas only a bird, I know, but it did hurt me at 
the time. . . . Things comes clear to ye at times. 
When you first bided about here, before we knowed 
anything about ye, times an' agin have we sin ye 
lookin' at the sun settin' over they firs. Since Jake's 
bin gone, mother an' me have thought on it, an' 
spoke of it to one another, that perhaps some one as 
you once knowed faded away westward, as the sun 
went down.' 
