It fell to me to make the coffin, which I did as well as I could from memory. I could not tell the carpenter, and I had to do the work myself. He did the rough work, and I did the cutting and fitting. I had to go entirely by my eye, and I found it no easy matter to get it in every respect in proportion. We covered it with black velvet outside, and inside with white linen. It looked very well when finished, and pleased Mr. and Mrs. Mills very much. It is a work I never thought of doing. At one point on the way through Siberia when homeward bound on his last furlough the train was halted by some defect in the working of the mechanism of the locomotive. Dr. Mateer, on account of the delay, got out of his compartment and went to see what was the matter. He saw that the locomotive was a huge Baldwin, with whose construction he had familiarized himself when in the United States on a previous furlough, and he quickly discovered the cause of the trouble. He could speak no Russian, and the men in charge of the engine could speak no English, but he managed to show them the cause of the defective working of the mechanism, and how to remedy it; and soon the train was again speeding on its way. The time never came during his long residence in China when a necessity did not occasionally force itself on him to utilize his mechanical gifts, and not infrequently on the common utensils of life. In Wei Hsien he often spent hours directing in such repairs as were needed for furnaces and the like.