The last conversations I had with Charley Parkhurst were slow and torturous for her. At the end of almost every sentence, she would take a sip of water or Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral, the snake oil remedy she’d bought, but never once did she complain of the pain she must have felt.

I remember well the day Frank Woodward walked up the path to our house asking that my son go to town to fetch Mr. O’Neill, the undertaker. It was Sunday, December 28, 1879, six weeks after I finally convinced Charley to see Dr. Plum, a cancer specialist in town, about her sore throat.

“It’s done,” Frank said, gently closing the door behind him. The lines on the old man’s face had deepened since I saw him last, and, to my mind, his skin had the look of ashes under the grate. The pouches under his eyes were a mottled brown almost matching the color of his sherry-hazel eyes. “Charley breathed his last a half hour ago.” A long pause punctuated his delivery of the sad news. He transferred his weight from one foot to the other while rolling his hat between his work-roughened hands.

“It would have been kinder of the Lord to have let Charley pass before the worst set in,” I said.

“Yep, he was a good man. A good friend to me for the past twenty years.” Frank stood in the doorway blinking back tears, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every convulsive swallow he took to marshal his usual reserve. “Guess I should head back and wait for O’Neill to come.”

“Charley wanted me to be with you when the time came, so I’ll be along shortly.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Frank bowed his head to put his hat on. I held the screen door wide while he shuffled off the porch and down the front path.

Well, Charley’s secret would be out now, soon as the undertaker examined her. Poor Frank was headed for a bit of a shock.