Alice Munros Best

out to help George. He had got all the wood out of the way and was at the digging. The ground was soft enough, like I had thought.He had the spade so I got the broad shovel and we worked away, him digging and loosening and me shovelling.
    Then we moved him out. We could not do it now one leg each so George got him at the head and me at the ankles where the petticoat was and we rolled him into the earth and set to work again to cover him up. George had the shovel and it seemed I could not get enough dirt onto the spade so I pushed it in with my hands and kicked it in with my feet any way at all. When it was all back in, George beat it down flat with the shovel as much as he could. Then we moved all the wood back searching where it was in the snow and we piled it up in the right way so it did not look as if anybody had been at it. I think we had no hats on or scarves but the work kept us warm.
    We took in more wood for the fire and put the bar across the door. I wiped up the floor and I said to George, take off your boots. Then, take off your coat. George did what I told him. He sat by the fire. I made the kind of tea from catnip leaves that Mrs. Treece showed me how to make and I put a piece of sugar in it. George did not want it. Is it too hot, I said. I let it cool off but then he didn’t want it either. So I began, and talked to him.
    You didn’t mean to do it.
    It was in anger, you didn’t mean what you were doing.
    I saw him other times what he would do to you. I saw he would knock you down for a little thing and you just get up and never say a word. The same way he did to me.
    If you had not have done it, some day he would have done it to you.
    Listen, George. Listen to me.
    If you own up what do you think will happen? They will hang you. You will be dead, you will be no good to anybody. What will become of your land? Likely it will all go back to the Crown and somebody else will get it and all the work you have done will be for them.
    What will become of me here if you are took away?
    I got some oat-cakes that were cold and I warmed them up. I set one on his knee. He took it and bit it and chewed it but he could not get it down and he spit it onto the fire.
    I said, listen. I know things. I am older than you are. I am religious too, I pray to God every night and my prayers are answered. I know what God wants as well as any preacher knows and I know that he does not want a good lad like you to be hanged. All you have to do is say you are sorry. Say you are sorry and mean it well and God will forgive you. I will say the same thing, I am sorry too because when I saw he was dead I did not wish, not one minute, for him to be alive. I will say, God forgive me, and you do the same. Kneel down.
    But he would not. He would not move out of his chair. And I said, all right. I have an idea. I am going to get the Bible. I asked him, do you believe in the Bible? Say you do. Nod your head.
    I did not see whether he nodded or not but I said, there. There you did. Now. I am going to do what we all used to do in the Home when we wanted to know what would happen to us or what we should do in our life. We would open the Bible any place and poke our finger at a page and then open our eyes and read the verse where our finger was and that would tell you what you needed to know. To make double sure of it just say when you close your eyes, God guide my finger.
    He would not raise a hand from his knee, so I said, all right. All right, I’ll do it for you. I did it, and I read where my finger stopped. I held the Bible close in to the fire so I could see.
    It was something about being old and gray-headed,
oh God forsake me not
, and I said, what that means is that you are supposed to live till you are old and gray-headed and nothing is supposed to happen to you before that. It says so, in the Bible.
    Then the next verse was so-and-so went and took so-and-so and conceived and bore him a son.
    It says you will have a son, I said. You have to live and get older and get married and have a son.
    But the next verse I remember so well I can put down all of it.
Neither can they prove the things of which they now accuse me.
    George, I said, do you hear that?
Neither can they prove the things of which they now accuse me.
That means that you are safe.
    You are safe. Get up now. Get up and go and lay on the bed and go to sleep.
    He could not do that by himself but I did it. I pulled on him and pulled on him until he was standing up and then I got