Luella Miller

Luella Miller

Close to the village street stood the one-story house in which
Luella Miller, who had an evil name in the village, had dwelt. She
had been dead for years, yet there were those in the village who,
in spite of the clearer light which comes on a vantage-point from a
long-past danger, half believed in the tale which they had heard
from their childhood. In their hearts, although they scarcely
would have owned it, was a survival of the wild horror and frenzied
fear of their ancestors who had dwelt in the same age with Luella
Miller. Young people even would stare with a shudder at the old
house as they passed, and children never played around it as was
their wont around an untenanted building. Not a window in the old
Miller house was broken: the panes reflected the morning sunlight
in patches of emerald and blue, and the latch of the sagging front
door was never lifted, although no bolt secured it. Since Luella
Miller had been carried out of it, the house had had no tenant
except one friendless old soul who had no choice between that and
the far-off shelter of the open sky. This old woman, who had
survived her kindred and friends, lived in the house one week, then
one morning no smoke came out of the chimney, and a body of
neighbours, a score strong, entered and found her dead in her bed.
There were dark whispers as to the cause of her death, and there
were those who testified to an expression of fear so exalted that
it showed forth the state of the departing soul upon the dead face.
The old woman had been hale and hearty when she entered the house,
and in seven days she was dead; it seemed that she had fallen a
victim to some uncanny power. The minister talked in the pulpit
with covert severity against the sin of superstition; still the
belief prevailed. Not a soul in the village but would have chosen
the almshouse rather than that dwelling. No vagrant, if he heard
the tale, would seek shelter beneath that old roof, unhallowed by
nearly half a century of superstitious fear.

There was only one person in the village who had actually known
Luella Miller. That person was a woman well over eighty, but a
marvel of vitality and unextinct youth. Straight as an arrow, with
the spring of one recently let loose from the bow of life, she
moved about the streets, and she always went to church, rain or
shine. She had never married, and had lived alone for years in a
house across the road from Luella Miller's.

This woman had none of the garrulousness of age, but never in all
her life had she ever held her tongue for any will save her own,
and she never spared the truth when she essayed to present it. She
it was who bore testimony to the life, evil, though possibly
wittingly or designedly so, of Luella Miller, and to her personal
appearance. When this old woman spoke--and she had the gift of
description, although her thoughts were clothed in the rude
vernacular of her native village--one could seem to see Luella
Miller as she had really looked. According to this woman, Lydia
Anderson by name, Luella Miller had been a beauty of a type rather
unusual in New England. She had been a slight, pliant sort of
creature, as ready with a strong yielding to fate and as
unbreakable as a willow. She had glimmering lengths of straight,
fair hair, which she wore softly looped round a long, lovely face.
She had blue eyes full of soft pleading, little slender, clinging
hands, and a wonderful grace of motion and attitude.

"Luella Miller used to sit in a way nobody else could if they sat
up and studied a week of Sundays," said Lydia Anderson, "and it was
a sight to see her walk. If one of them willows over there on the
edge of the brook could start up and get its roots free of the
ground, and move off, it would go just the way Luella Miller used
to. She had a green shot silk she used to wear, too, and a hat
with green ribbon streamers, and a lace veil blowing across her
face and out sideways, and a green ribbon flyin' from her waist.
That was what she came out bride in when she married Erastus
Miller. Her name before she was married was Hill. There was
always a sight of "l's" in her name, married or single. Erastus
Miller was good lookin', too, better lookin' than Luella.
Sometimes I used to think that Luella wa'n't so handsome after all.
Erastus just about worshiped her. I used to know him pretty well.
He lived next door to me, and we went to school together. Folks
used to say he was waitin' on me, but he wa'n't. I never thought
he was except once or twice when he said things that some girls
might have suspected meant somethin'. That was before Luella came
here to teach the district school. It was funny how she came to
get it, for folks said she hadn't any education, and that one of
the big girls, Lottie Henderson, used to do all the teachin' for
her, while she sat back and did embroidery work on a cambric
pocket-handkerchief. Lottie Henderson was a real smart girl, a
splendid scholar, and she just set her eyes by Luella, as all the
girls did. Lottie would have made a real smart woman, but she died
when Luella had been here about a year--just faded away and died:
nobody knew what aided her. She dragged herself to that
schoolhouse and helped Luella teach till the very last minute. The
committee all knew how Luella didn't do much of the work herself,
but they winked at it. It wa'n't long after Lottie died that
Erastus married her. I always thought he hurried it up because she
wa'n't fit to teach. One of the big boys used to help her after
Lottie died, but he hadn't much government, and the school didn't
do very well, and Luella might have had to give it up, for the
committee couldn't have shut their eyes to things much longer. The
boy that helped her was a real honest, innocent sort of fellow, and
he was a good scholar, too. Folks said he overstudied, and that
was the reason he was took crazy the year after Luella married, but
I don't know. And I don't know what made Erastus Miller go into
consumption of the blood the year after he was married: consumption
wa'n't in his family. He just grew weaker and weaker, and went
almost bent double when he tried to wait on Luella, and he spoke
feeble, like an old man. He worked terrible hard till the last
trying to save up a little to leave Luella. I've seen him out in
the worst storms on a wood-sled--he used to cut and sell wood--and
he was hunched up on top lookin' more dead than alive. Once I
couldn't stand it: I went over and helped him pitch some wood on
the cart--I was always strong in my arms. I wouldn't stop for all
he told me to, and I guess he was glad enough for the help. That
was only a week before he died. He fell on the kitchen floor while
he was gettin' breakfast. He always got the breakfast and let
Luella lay abed. He did all the sweepin' and the washin' and the
ironin' and most of the cookin'. He couldn't bear to have Luella
lift her finger, and she let him do for her. She lived like a
queen for all the work she did. She didn't even do her sewin'.
She said it made her shoulder ache to sew, and poor Erastus's
sister Lily used to do all her sewin'. She wa'n't able to, either;
she was never strong in her back, but she did it beautifully. She
had to, to suit Luella, she was so dreadful particular. I never
saw anythin' like the fagottin' and hemstitchin' that Lily Miller
did for Luella. She made all Luella's weddin' outfit, and that
green silk dress, after Maria Babbit cut it. Maria she cut it for
nothin', and she did a lot more cuttin' and fittin' for nothin' for
Luella, too. Lily Miller went to live with Luella after Erastus
died. She gave up her home, though she was real attached to it and
wa'n't a mite afraid to stay alone. She rented it and she went to
live with Luella right away after the funeral."

Then this old woman, Lydia Anderson, who remembered Luella Miller,
would go on to relate the story of Lily Miller. It seemed that on
the removal of Lily Miller to the house of her dead brother, to
live with his widow, the village people first began to talk. This
Lily Miller had been hardly past her first youth, and a most robust
and blooming woman, rosy-cheeked, with curls of strong, black hair
overshadowing round, candid temples and bright dark eyes. It was
not six months after she had taken up her residence with her
sister-in-law that her rosy colour faded and her pretty curves
became wan hollows. White shadows began to show in the black rings
of her hair, and the light died out of her eyes, her features
sharpened, and there were pathetic lines at her mouth, which yet
wore always an expression of utter sweetness and even happiness.
She was devoted to her sister; there was no doubt that she loved
her with her whole heart, and was perfectly content in her service.
It was her sole anxiety lest she should die and leave her alone.

"The way Lily Miller used to talk about Luella was enough to make
you mad and enough to make you cry," said Lydia Anderson. "I've
been in there sometimes toward the last when she was too feeble to
cook and carried her some blanc-mange or custard--somethin' I
thought she might relish, and she'd thank me, and when I asked her
how she was, say she felt better than she did yesterday, and asked
me if I didn't think she looked better, dreadful pitiful, and say
poor Luella had an awful time takin' care of her and doin' the
work--she wa'n't strong enough to do anythin'--when all the time
Luella wa'n't liftin' her finger and poor Lily didn't get any care
except what the neighbours gave her, and Luella eat up everythin'
that was carried in for Lily. I had it real straight that she did.
Luella used to just sit and cry and do nothin'. She did act real
fond of Lily, and she pined away considerable, too. There was
those that thought she'd go into a decline herself. But after Lily
died, her Aunt Abby Mixter came, and then Luella picked up and grew
as fat and rosy as ever. But poor Aunt Abby begun to droop just
the way Lily had, and I guess somebody wrote to her married
daughter, Mrs. Sam Abbot, who lived in Barre, for she wrote her
mother that she must leave right away and come and make her a
visit, but Aunt Abby wouldn't go. I can see her now. She was a
real good-lookin' woman, tall and large, with a big, square face
and a high forehead that looked of itself kind of benevolent and
good. She just tended out on Luella as if she had been a baby, and
when her married daughter sent for her she wouldn't stir one inch.
She'd always thought a lot of her daughter, too, but she said
Luella needed her and her married daughter didn't. Her daughter
kept writin' and writin', but it didn't do any good. Finally she
came, and when she saw how bad her mother looked, she broke down
and cried and all but went on her knees to have her come away. She
spoke her mind out to Luella, too. She told her that she'd killed
her husband and everybody that had anythin' to do with her, and
she'd thank her to leave her mother alone. Luella went into
hysterics, and Aunt Abby was so frightened that she called me after
her daughter went. Mrs. Sam Abbot she went away fairly cryin' out
loud in the buggy, the neighbours heard her, and well she might,
for she never saw her mother again alive. I went in that night
when Aunt Abby called for me, standin' in the door with her little
green-checked shawl over her head. I can see her now. 'Do come
over here, Miss Anderson,' she sung out, kind of gasping for
breath. I didn't stop for anythin'. I put over as fast as I
could, and when I got there, there was Luella laughin' and cryin'
all together, and Aunt Abby trying to hush her, and all the time
she herself was white as a sheet and shakin' so she could hardly
stand. 'For the land sakes, Mrs. Mixter,' says I, 'you look worse
than she does. You ain't fit to be up out of your bed.'

"'Oh, there ain't anythin' the matter with me,' says she. Then she
went on talkin' to Luella. 'There, there, don't, don't, poor
little lamb,' says she. 'Aunt Abby is here. She ain't goin' away
and leave you. Don't, poor little lamb.'

"'Do leave her with me, Mrs. Mixter, and you get back to bed,' says
I, for Aunt Abby had been layin' down considerable lately, though
somehow she contrived to do the work.

"'I'm well enough,' says she. 'Don't you think she had better have
the doctor, Miss Anderson?'

"'The doctor,' says I, 'I think YOU had better have the doctor. I
think you need him much worse than some folks I could mention.'
And I looked right straight at Luella Miller laughin' and cryin'
and goin' on as if she was the centre of all creation. All the
time she was actin' so--seemed as if she was too sick to sense
anythin'--she was keepin' a sharp lookout as to how we took it out
of the corner of one eye. I see her. You could never cheat me
about Luella Miller. Finally I got real mad and I run home and I
got a bottle of valerian I had, and I poured some boilin' hot water
on a handful of catnip, and I mixed up that catnip tea with most
half a wineglass of valerian, and I went with it over to Luella's.
I marched right up to Luella, a-holdin' out of that cup, all
smokin'. 'Now,' says I, 'Luella Miller, 'YOU SWALLER THIS!'

"'What is--what is it, oh, what is it?' she sort of screeches out.
Then she goes off a-laughin' enough to kill.

"'Poor lamb, poor little lamb,' says Aunt Abby, standin' over her,
all kind of tottery, and tryin' to bathe her head with camphor.

"'YOU SWALLER THIS RIGHT DOWN,' says I. And I didn't waste any
ceremony. I just took hold of Luella Miller's chin and I tipped
her head back, and I caught her mouth open with laughin', and I
clapped that cup to her lips, and I fairly hollered at her:
'Swaller, swaller, swaller!' and she gulped it right down. She had
to, and I guess it did her good. Anyhow, she stopped cryin' and
laughin' and let me put her to bed, and she went to sleep like a
baby inside of half an hour. That was more than poor Aunt Abby
did. She lay awake all that night and I stayed with her, though
she tried not to have me; said she wa'n't sick enough for watchers.
But I stayed, and I made some good cornmeal gruel and I fed her a
teaspoon every little while all night long. It seemed to me as if
she was jest dyin' from bein' all wore out. In the mornin' as soon
as it was light I run over to the Bisbees and sent Johnny Bisbee
for the doctor. I told him to tell the doctor to hurry, and he
come pretty quick. Poor Aunt Abby didn't seem to know much of
anythin' when he got there. You couldn't hardly tell she breathed,
she was so used up. When the doctor had gone, Luella came into the
room lookin' like a baby in her ruffled nightgown. I can see her
now. Her eyes were as blue and her face all pink and white like a
blossom, and she looked at Aunt Abby in the bed sort of innocent
and surprised. 'Why,' says she, 'Aunt Abby ain't got up yet?'

"'No, she ain't,' says I, pretty short.

"'I thought I didn't smell the coffee,' says Luella.

"'Coffee,' says I. 'I guess if you have coffee this mornin' you'll
make it yourself.'

"'I never made the coffee in all my life,' says she, dreadful
astonished. 'Erastus always made the coffee as long as he lived,
and then Lily she made it, and then Aunt Abby made it. I don't
believe I CAN make the coffee, Miss Anderson.'

"'You can make it or go without, jest as you please,' says I.

"'Ain't Aunt Abby goin' to get up?' says she.

"'I guess she won't get up,' says I, 'sick as she is.' I was
gettin' madder and madder. There was somethin' about that little
pink-and-white thing standin' there and talkin' about coffee, when
she had killed so many better folks than she was, and had jest
killed another, that made me feel 'most as if I wished somebody
would up and kill her before she had a chance to do any more harm.

"'Is Aunt Abby sick?' says Luella, as if she was sort of aggrieved
and injured.

"'Yes,' says I, 'she's sick, and she's goin' to die, and then
you'll be left alone, and you'll have to do for yourself and wait
on yourself, or do without things.' I don't know but I was sort of
hard, but it was the truth, and if I was any harder than Luella
Miller had been I'll give up. I ain't never been sorry that I said
it. Well, Luella, she up and had hysterics again at that, and I
jest let her have 'em. All I did was to bundle her into the room
on the other side of the entry where Aunt Abby couldn't hear her,
if she wa'n't past it--I don't know but she was--and set her down
hard in a chair and told her not to come back into the other room,
and she minded. She had her hysterics in there till she got tired.
When she found out that nobody was comin' to coddle her and do for
her she stopped. At least I suppose she did. I had all I could do
with poor Aunt Abby tryin' to keep the breath of life in her. The
doctor had told me that she was dreadful low, and give me some very
strong medicine to give to her in drops real often, and told me
real particular about the nourishment. Well, I did as he told me
real faithful till she wa'n't able to swaller any longer. Then I
had her daughter sent for. I had begun to realize that she
wouldn't last any time at all. I hadn't realized it before, though
I spoke to Luella the way I did. The doctor he came, and Mrs. Sam
Abbot, but when she got there it was too late; her mother was dead.
Aunt Abby's daughter just give one look at her mother layin' there,
then she turned sort of sharp and sudden and looked at me.

"'Where is she?' says she, and I knew she meant Luella.

"'She's out in the kitchen,' says I. 'She's too nervous to see
folks die. She's afraid it will make her sick.'

"The Doctor he speaks up then. He was a young man. Old Doctor
Park had died the year before, and this was a young fellow just out
of college. 'Mrs. Miller is not strong,' says he, kind of severe,
'and she is quite right in not agitating herself.'

"'You are another, young man; she's got her pretty claw on you,'
thinks I, but I didn't say anythin' to him. I just said over to
Mrs. Sam Abbot that Luella was in the kitchen, and Mrs. Sam Abbot
she went out there, and I went, too, and I never heard anythin'
like the way she talked to Luella Miller. I felt pretty hard to
Luella myself, but this was more than I ever would have dared to
say. Luella she was too scared to go into hysterics. She jest
flopped. She seemed to jest shrink away to nothin' in that kitchen
chair, with Mrs. Sam Abbot standin' over her and talkin' and
tellin' her the truth. I guess the truth was most too much for her
and no mistake, because Luella presently actually did faint away,
and there wa'n't any sham about it, the way I always suspected
there was about them hysterics. She fainted dead away and we had
to lay her flat on the floor, and the Doctor he came runnin' out
and he said somethin' about a weak heart dreadful fierce to Mrs.
Sam Abbot, but she wa'n't a mite scared. She faced him jest as
white as even Luella was layin' there lookin' like death and the
Doctor feelin' of her pulse.

"'Weak heart,' says she, 'weak heart; weak fiddlesticks! There
ain't nothin' weak about that woman. She's got strength enough to
hang onto other folks till she kills 'em. Weak? It was my poor
mother that was weak: this woman killed her as sure as if she had
taken a knife to her.'

"But the Doctor he didn't pay much attention. He was bendin' over
Luella layin' there with her yellow hair all streamin' and her
pretty pink-and-white face all pale, and her blue eyes like stars
gone out, and he was holdin' onto her hand and smoothin' her
forehead, and tellin' me to get the brandy in Aunt Abby's room, and
I was sure as I wanted to be that Luella had got somebody else to
hang onto, now Aunt Abby was gone, and I thought of poor Erastus
Miller, and I sort of pitied the poor young Doctor, led away by a
pretty face, and I made up my mind I'd see what I could do.

"I waited till Aunt Abby had been dead and buried about a month,
and the Doctor was goin' to see Luella steady and folks were
beginnin' to talk; then one evenin', when I knew the Doctor had
been called out of town and wouldn't be round, I went over to
Luella's. I found her all dressed up in a blue muslin with white
polka dots on it, and her hair curled jest as pretty, and there
wa'n't a young girl in the place could compare with her. There was
somethin' about Luella Miller seemed to draw the heart right out of
you, but she didn't draw it out of ME. She was settin' rocking in
the chair by her sittin'-room window, and Maria Brown had gone
home. Maria Brown had been in to help her, or rather to do the
work, for Luella wa'n't helped when she didn't do anythin'. Maria
Brown was real capable and she didn't have any ties; she wa'n't
married, and lived alone, so she'd offered. I couldn't see why she
should do the work any more than Luella; she wa'n't any too strong;
but she seemed to think she could and Luella seemed to think so,
too, so she went over and did all the work--washed, and ironed, and
baked, while Luella sat and rocked. Maria didn't live long
afterward. She began to fade away just the same fashion the others
had. Well, she was warned, but she acted real mad when folks said
anythin': said Luella was a poor, abused woman, too delicate to
help herself, and they'd ought to be ashamed, and if she died
helpin' them that couldn't help themselves she would--and she did.

"'I s'pose Maria has gone home,' says I to Luella, when I had gone
in and sat down opposite her.

"'Yes, Maria went half an hour ago, after she had got supper and
washed the dishes,' says Luella, in her pretty way.

"'I suppose she has got a lot of work to do in her own house to-
night,' says I, kind of bitter, but that was all thrown away on
Luella Miller. It seemed to her right that other folks that wa'n't
any better able than she was herself should wait on her, and she
couldn't get it through her head that anybody should think it
WA'N'T right.

"'Yes,' says Luella, real sweet and pretty, 'yes, she said she had
to do her washin' to-night. She has let it go for a fortnight
along of comin' over here.'

"'Why don't she stay home and do her washin' instead of comin'
over here and doin' YOUR work, when you are just as well able, and
enough sight more so, than she is to do it?' says I.

"Then Luella she looked at me like a baby who has a rattle shook at
it. She sort of laughed as innocent as you please. 'Oh, I can't
do the work myself, Miss Anderson,' says she. 'I never did. Maria
HAS to do it.'

"Then I spoke out: 'Has to do it I' says I. 'Has to do it!' She
don't have to do it, either. Maria Brown has her own home and
enough to live on. She ain't beholden to you to come over here and
slave for you and kill herself.'

"Luella she jest set and stared at me for all the world like a
doll-baby that was so abused that it was comin' to life.

"'Yes,' says I, 'she's killin' herself. She's goin' to die just
the way Erastus did, and Lily, and your Aunt Abby. You're killin'
her jest as you did them. I don't know what there is about you,
but you seem to bring a curse,' says I. 'You kill everybody that
is fool enough to care anythin' about you and do for you.'

"She stared at me and she was pretty pale.

"'And Maria ain't the only one you're goin' to kill,' says I.
'You're goin' to kill Doctor Malcom before you're done with him.'

"Then a red colour came flamin' all over her face. 'I ain't goin'
to kill him, either,' says she, and she begun to cry.

"'Yes, you BE!' says I. Then I spoke as I had never spoke before.
You see, I felt it on account of Erastus. I told her that she
hadn't any business to think of another man after she'd been
married to one that had died for her: that she was a dreadful
woman; and she was, that's true enough, but sometimes I have
wondered lately if she knew it--if she wa'n't like a baby with
scissors in its hand cuttin' everybody without knowin' what it was
doin'.

"Luella she kept gettin' paler and paler, and she never took her
eyes off my face. There was somethin' awful about the way she
looked at me and never spoke one word. After awhile I quit talkin'
and I went home. I watched that night, but her lamp went out
before nine o'clock, and when Doctor Malcom came drivin' past and
sort of slowed up he see there wa'n't any light and he drove along.
I saw her sort of shy out of meetin' the next Sunday, too, so he
shouldn't go home with her, and I begun to think mebbe she did have
some conscience after all. It was only a week after that that
Maria Brown died--sort of sudden at the last, though everybody had
seen it was comin'. Well, then there was a good deal of feelin'
and pretty dark whispers. Folks said the days of witchcraft had
come again, and they were pretty shy of Luella. She acted sort of
offish to the Doctor and he didn't go there, and there wa'n't
anybody to do anythin' for her. I don't know how she DID get
along. I wouldn't go in there and offer to help her--not because I
was afraid of dyin' like the rest, but I thought she was just as
well able to do her own work as I was to do it for her, and I
thought it was about time that she did it and stopped killin' other
folks. But it wa'n't very long before folks began to say that
Luella herself was goin' into a decline jest the way her husband,
and Lily, and Aunt Abby and the others had, and I saw myself that
she looked pretty bad. I used to see her goin' past from the store
with a bundle as if she could hardly crawl, but I remembered how
Erastus used to wait and 'tend when he couldn't hardly put one foot
before the other, and I didn't go out to help her.

"But at last one afternoon I saw the Doctor come drivin' up like
mad with his medicine chest, and Mrs. Babbit came in after supper
and said that Luella was real sick.

"'I'd offer to go in and nurse her,' says she, 'but I've got my
children to consider, and mebbe it ain't true what they say, but
it's queer how many folks that have done for her have died.'

"I didn't say anythin', but I considered how she had been Erastus's
wife and how he had set his eyes by her, and I made up my mind to
go in the next mornin', unless she was better, and see what I could
do; but the next mornin' I see her at the window, and pretty soon
she came steppin' out as spry as you please, and a little while
afterward Mrs. Babbit came in and told me that the Doctor had got a
girl from out of town, a Sarah Jones, to come there, and she said
she was pretty sure that the Doctor was goin' to marry Luella.

"I saw him kiss her in the door that night myself, and I knew it
was true. The woman came that afternoon, and the way she flew
around was a caution. I don't believe Luella had swept since Maria
died. She swept and dusted, and washed and ironed; wet clothes and
dusters and carpets were flyin' over there all day, and every time
Luella set her foot out when the Doctor wa'n't there there was that
Sarah Jones helpin' of her up and down the steps, as if she hadn't
learned to walk.

"Well, everybody knew that Luella and the Doctor were goin' to be
married, but it wa'n't long before they began to talk about his
lookin' so poorly, jest as they had about the others; and they
talked about Sarah Jones, too.

"Well, the Doctor did die, and he wanted to be married first, so as
to leave what little he had to Luella, but he died before the
minister could get there, and Sarah Jones died a week afterward.

"Well, that wound up everything for Luella Miller. Not another
soul in the whole town would lift a finger for her. There got to
be a sort of panic. Then she began to droop in good earnest. She
used to have to go to the store herself, for Mrs. Babbit was afraid
to let Tommy go for her, and I've seen her goin' past and stoppin'
every two or three steps to rest. Well, I stood it as long as I
could, but one day I see her comin' with her arms full and stoppin'
to lean against the Babbit fence, and I run out and took her
bundles and carried them to her house. Then I went home and never
spoke one word to her though she called after me dreadful kind of
pitiful. Well, that night I was taken sick with a chill, and I was
sick as I wanted to be for two weeks. Mrs. Babbit had seen me run
out to help Luella and she came in and told me I was goin' to die
on account of it. I didn't know whether I was or not, but I
considered I had done right by Erastus's wife.

"That last two weeks Luella she had a dreadful hard time, I guess.
She was pretty sick, and as near as I could make out nobody dared
go near her. I don't know as she was really needin' anythin' very
much, for there was enough to eat in her house and it was warm
weather, and she made out to cook a little flour gruel every day, I
know, but I guess she had a hard time, she that had been so petted
and done for all her life.

"When I got so I could go out, I went over there one morning. Mrs.
Babbit had just come in to say she hadn't seen any smoke and she
didn't know but it was somebody's duty to go in, but she couldn't
help thinkin' of her children, and I got right up, though I hadn't
been out of the house for two weeks, and I went in there, and
Luella she was layin' on the bed, and she was dyin'.

"She lasted all that day and into the night. But I sat there after
the new doctor had gone away. Nobody else dared to go there. It
was about midnight that I left her for a minute to run home and get
some medicine I had been takin', for I begun to feel rather bad.

"It was a full moon that night, and just as I started out of my
door to cross the street back to Luella's, I stopped short, for I
saw something."

Lydia Anderson at this juncture always said with a certain defiance
that she did not expect to be believed, and then proceeded in a
hushed voice:

"I saw what I saw, and I know I saw it, and I will swear on my
death bed that I saw it. I saw Luella Miller and Erastus Miller,
and Lily, and Aunt Abby, and Maria, and the Doctor, and Sarah, all
goin' out of her door, and all but Luella shone white in the
moonlight, and they were all helpin' her along till she seemed to
fairly fly in the midst of them. Then it all disappeared. I stood
a minute with my heart poundin', then I went over there. I thought
of goin' for Mrs. Babbit, but I thought she'd be afraid. So I went
alone, though I knew what had happened. Luella was layin' real
peaceful, dead on her bed."

This was the story that the old woman, Lydia Anderson, told, but
the sequel was told by the people who survived her, and this is the
tale which has become folklore in the village.

Lydia Anderson died when she was eighty-seven. She had continued
wonderfully hale and hearty for one of her years until about two
weeks before her death.

One bright moonlight evening she was sitting beside a window in her
parlour when she made a sudden exclamation, and was out of the
house and across the street before the neighbour who was taking
care of her could stop her. She followed as fast as possible and
found Lydia Anderson stretched on the ground before the door of
Luella Miller's deserted house, and she was quite dead.

The next night there was a red gleam of fire athwart the moonlight
and the old house of Luella Miller was burned to the ground.
Nothing is now left of it except a few old cellar stones and a
lilac bush, and in summer a helpless trail of morning glories among
the weeds, which might be considered emblematic of Luella herself.

-THE END-
Mary E Wilkins Freeman's short story: Luella Miller

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