filled these seats full, for in such lonesome neighborhoods a funeral is about the only break in the monotony of life, and they are attended with avidity.
Jest as we went in the hall Hamen and his wife come down the front stairs. She wuz dressed in deep black from head to foot, and had a long crape veil she had borrowed for the occasion over her face, and a black-bordered handkerchief. She looked real smart, havin' forgot herself and her various diseases in the sad excitement of the occasion. Alzina follered her, dressed in a dark alpacky, her usual dress which she wore whilst she wuz tuggin' along takin' care of the deceased day and night; but her eyes wuz red and swelled up with weepin', and she wuz real pale. I wuz sorry for Alzina. Anna and Cicero follered, and then the other married sister and her children, and then Grandma Bodley's brother's family, and other distant relations. I laid out to fall into the procession long to the last of it, but at the last minute I missed Josiah, and found him in the settin' room settin' on a board near the door, and I whispered to him and told him to come on into the parlor.
And he whispered back, "I told you I wuzn't goin' to mourn much, and I hain't." I couldn't move him no more than I could the board he wuz settin' on. But for the sake of decency and on Jack's account I went into the parlor with him, but I sot down pretty nigh the door so as to compromise between my partner and duty.
Well, the sermon wuz pretty long, but scriptural, no doubt; it was a bashful young preacher, and his first funeral sermon, almost his first sermon at all; and then I guess the singin' onnerved him—it wuz dretful. The hymn wuz Grandma Bodley's favorite, and chose by Alzina:
