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Show 212 "He's dead! " Mama cried. "I knew all the way he was dead!" "I told Ervin to say he was sick and not expected to live, " said Grant. "I didn't want it to be a shock to you. " Bob Ross was the first man there, and then came Dr. McQuarrie. "Angina, " he said. "What a way to die! " Mama wept. "What a place to die! " It was a good place, on the land he brought her as a bride, and had tilled for nearly thirty years. It was a good way for him to die, abhorring sickness as he did, but too early, because he was only fifty-seven. And so sudden! It was months before we stopped expecting Papa's springy step on the porch, his familiar: "Where's my hat?" Before we fully realized that our life with Papa had come to an end. * * * * * * * * * Death does not come alone, it seems. The next spring Uncle Will came to Mama and told her he was going to die, and he had no place to go. He had a "tobacco cough" which, interpreted: bad heart. "I've got a small herd of sheep, and an old Ford. If you'll take care of me through it, I'll leave you everything I've got. " We were in Colorado Springs when Mama wrote to me about it. I wrote to him on January 28, 1928: "Dear Uncle Will: I was thinking about you today, funny, and then Rachel's letter came telling me about you being so sick. Of the stories you used to tell us they don't come out funny when I t ry to tell them. Every little girl ought to to have an Uncle Will like you-patient, kind, amusing " He lived to get the letter. |