Dave wuz still choppin' away.

Fur nearly every day fur night thirty years, the sound o' his ax hed been music in my ears.

I had larned to know hit, even afore we wuz lovers, fur his father's land jined my father's, an' hit seems ter me that I could tell he note o' his ax from thet o' everybody else, a'most ez airly ez I could tell a robin's song from a blackbird's.

Girl, woman, wife an' mother, I hed listened to hit while I knit, wove, or spun, every stroke minglin' with the sounds o' my wheel or loom an' the song o' the birds, an' tellin' me whar he wuz, an' thet he wuz toilin' cheefully fur me an' mine.
"Now, fur the fust time in all these years, hits steady strong beat brought mis'ry ter my ears.

Hit wuz ez the tollin' of bell fur some one not yit dead.