When the procession was about to start for the burying-ground, the request was made to me that I would blow the horn, even as the bell is usually tolled on such occasions, for it would seem inappropriate for one of the Wallencampers to do so, they all having been related to the deceased. At such a time, I could not refuse, though the emotions with which I crossed over to the school-house to perform this grim duty, were of a nature best known to, and appreciated by, myself. My terror of the Wallencamp horn had waxed daily. I believed that there was nothing in the whole world of inanimate things on which I would not sooner have attempted to sound a funeral dirge. Though capable of some variety of expression, it had never yet been seduced into emitting any sound in the least indicative of the designs struggling in the mind of the blower. The human was paralyzed before it--a mere machine to blow into it and let come what would. And, now, for the first time in my experience, it took on a jubilant strain. I blew slowly; I blew solemnly. Still, it sounded like nothing else than a glad, exultant rallying-call. I paused, horrified. From the rear of the moving procession, Aunt Patty, with a yell and a frantic gesture of the hands, entreated me to "keep a blowin'!" And, as I stood thus on the steps of the deserted school-house and blew, only to hear the wild lamentations of my soul translated into strains of fiendish mirth through the medium of the horn, the Turkey Mogul, arrived on his second visit of examination to the Wallencamp school, seemed to be descending before my eyes, in a vortex of the giddy atmosphere. In fact, he was alighting from his buggy, and a grim, though reassuring smile sat on his features. "I see! I see!" he nodded his head. "You've given them a good start," he added, succinctly, indicating the direction of the Wallencampers; "humph! yes! they are always up to something!" He thrust his hands in his pockets, and, maintaining the same sardonic grin, he, too, stood and watched that receding column. It was an odd combination of circumstances. I had ceased my mad though involuntary jubilate, on the horn, and was slowly aspiring to that equanimity of mind which the exigencies of the case seemed to require, when the Turkey Mogul turned abruptly, and without speaking a word, handed me a soiled and wrinkled little sheet of paper, the contents of which caused my heart, for an instant, to cease beating, and then set it throbbing with a wild joy and exultation. It was simply a petition--wrought out of whose brain I know not, but most curiously inscribed in Aunt Patty's own hand, and signed by all the Wallencampers, with "CAPTAIN SARTELL," at the head, and "b. lot" at the foot--to the effect that it was their desire that my labors might be longer continued among them.