flushed and then grew pale. She felt once as if she could murder the heartless old skinflint as he sat at his desk. There was no way to get the money, and she perceived that she was absolutely in the hands of this merciless creature. With rage and despair consuming her spirit, she left the room.
The next day the girl and her invalid mother were forced to leave their cozy little home, and move into the damp, decaying house at the other end of the village. Neighbors insisted that the sick woman come into their homes, but even in her illness the invalid was too proud to do so.
Two weeks later the suffering of the poor woman was at an end. Out in the cemetery a haggard girl watched the lumpy, half-frozen clods of earth fall down upon the casket and shut in forever the body of her loved one. She did not leave with most of her neighbors who had attended the funeral, but stood silent, watching the swiftly filling hole.
Her eyes were dry. There were no tears left to soothe her. She had wept at the words of the minister, but now she had ceased. A fierce bitterness filled her heart.
When the mound had been finished, the pastor gently touched her arm, intending to lead her back to the carriage. But the girl fiercely shook off the friendly hand.
"Leave me alone!" she said.
"But it is damp and cold, and I want you to ride back home. All the other vehicles have gone."
"I can walk," she answered shortly.
The minister regarded her a moment and decided that it might be best to let her remain. He began to retrace his steps toward his conveyance. Reaching a bend in the road, he looked back, but the solitary figure was still standing motionless.
By most of the villagers Mr. Seaman was considered to be the stingiest, most tight-fisted old skinflint that ever lived. The older he became, the more his mercilessness seemed to increase. Even the dogs—when they saw him coming down the street—got out of his way.
The old man lived in a small ramshackle cottage at the edge of the village, and no one ever visited him there. He had a little office above the local bank, and it was in this that his callers found him when they wished to adjust money matters.
For several weeks the old man had been feeling a peculiar numbness all along his right side. At first he paid scarcely any heed to it, but it did not go away. As a result, he began to pinch his right leg every morning to see whether he was any better. He could notice no improvement, and as time passed, he believed that he was getting worse.
"I suppose it's just because I'm gettin' older'n I used to be," he thought, but this did not comfort him at all.
As a consequence, he determined to consult the town's physician, and although he regretted wasting his money in this manner, he went up to see Dr. Jackson.
The physician told him that it acted very much like paralysis, and that a complete numbness of his whole body might result. Although this might be gradual, he said, it could occur at a sudden stroke.
The doctor did not try especially to allay the old man's fears, for he shared the popular feeling toward the miser, and he saw that he was very susceptible to suggestion.
Sherman came away very much frightened. He did not appear to fear death itself, strange as this would seem. Perhaps it never occurred to him that his paralysis might be fatal. What really terrified him, however, was the idea that he might be rendered incapable of making either movement or sound, and that then he would be buried alive. This thought of being locked up in a coffin while he was not actually dead, haunted him day and night.
In his sleep he would dream of being locked within a casket, unable to utter a word, yet comprehending all that went on around him. He could hear the dirt fall shovelful after shovelful upon the box in which he was imprisoned. He could feel the air becoming oppressive.
Then he would swing his arms sideways, only to find himself shut in. He would kick, and endeavor to lift the lid, but six feet of damp earth would be crushing it down against his feeble efforts. He would beat frantically upon the encircling boards, but the hard-packed earth would muffle the sound. He could feel the pitch-blackness of his stifling tomb.
He could not see. He had used up almost all the air within his narrow coffin. He could imagine the grave-diggers walking around complacently several feet above him. If he could only make them hear! He was smothering—buried alive!
With a scream of horror he would waken, and lay panting, as he tried to recover from his nightmare. But he could not entirely push these dreams away, for he knew that there might be some truth in them. He had already seen an article in a magazine telling of just such a case. He decided that he must find the article again.
Searching for several hours through the pile of magazines which he kept stacked within one of his small rooms, he at length came upon the story which he had been seeking. Although it frightened him, he could not help reading it again.
He learned that for some reason the buried man had been dug up a few weeks after his interment, and when the casket had been opened, the dead man was found lying on his stomach with one hand clutching his scalp, from which most of the hair had been torn off.
Fascinated by the horror of the tale, he found himself reading it again. He could not help himself. For the remainder of the night he would lie thinking of the possibility that he himself might be buried alive.
In the daytime he was obsessed with this same thought. Even while he walked down the street to his office—and he found it more difficult to do so each day—he could clearly imagine himself so paralyzed that the neighbors might take him to be dead. Mentally he could see them gathering around his bedside. He could feel them lift him into the casket. He could feel himself driven to the cemetery, and lowered into the cold ground, all the while powerless to cry out or show in any way that he still lived. This idea almost smothered him, even while he was wide awake.
He grew haggard because of his fear, and would go about the town muttering to himself, and occasionally flinging out his arms, as if to push off something that seemed to be enveloping him. People thought that he was going crazy, and, indeed, his actions tended further to substantiate their judgment, for he grew more queer from day to day.
At last he went back to see Dr. Jackson, and confided his fears to him. The latter only laughed, and told him not to worry for the townspeople would not bury him before he was entirely dead.
"Anyway," the Doctor added, "the embalming fluid will kill you if you aren't dead already."
"No! No! No!" screamed the terrified old man. "I won't be embalmed! I won't be embalmed!" and his voice rose more shrilly at each repetition. "Promise me that you won't let them embalm me!" he demanded, and his eyes shone wildly.
The Doctor began to place credence in the reports of the town's gossips concerning the old man's madness.
"But every one's embalmed nowadays," he explained.
"But I don't want to be!" the miser said fiercely, as he began to shudder. "I might not be dead for sure, and if I were not embalmed, then I could come to life again."
The Doctor finally promised that he would not permit the poisonous chemicals to be placed within the old man's veins, in case the latter should die.
"Now there is something else I want you to promise me," the miser
