“No, he ain’t no nephew,” she said, in a tone that I had learned to recognize as a shut trail in Unakasia. The story was not for me, an outsider. Even Len and Serena had turned a gently impassive front to my very reasonable interest in Uncle Nathe’s family history. But Serena now stepped up and said intimately: “Jest wait, Mis’ Dolly. We’ll go to dinner with Aunt Lizy Haynes. Uncle Nathe’s half-brother, Ranz, is stayin’ there, an’ he’s shore to let loose after the buryin’. When Uncle Ranz lets loose it’s something else, I’m tryin’ to tell ye. They won’t be any more questions to ast when he gits through.” Then she moved over to Bake. “It’s fine, yore comin’ in, Bake,” she said. “Of course I wanted to be at the funeral, but,” he explained honestly, “I’ve come mainly to get mother.” “She goin’ back with you?” cried half a dozen voices. “She’s promised to. I’ve been trying to get her to come out to me and Jenny ever since we’ve been married.” Then his voice seemed to struggle a little. “Before we tied up, Jenny gave me her word that she’d be good to mother, and I know she’ll keep it.” “You got any young-uns?” asked Len, and Bake said he had a little boy. They had named him Nathan. “That tickled Uncle Nathe, I reckon,” said the woman who had answered me the moment before. Then she hastened to cover her indiscretion. “’Course y’all have been on his place a long time, an’ he’s been mighty good to ye.” “He’s been good to ever’body,” said another. “I reckon he has,” said Bake, and we entered the graveyard. It was to be a Masonic funeral. Uncle Nathe’s popularity would have drawn a large attendance, but the presence of the Fraternity made the occasion an event in Silver Valley’s history. Nathan Ponder had been the only Freemason in his township, a member of the distant lodge in Carson, and for years he had not been in active attendance there, but he had left a request to be buried by the brethren, and they had gallantly responded. “That’s Elmer Jenkins,” whispered Serena of a man who was prominent in the ceremony. “He’s a lawyer, come up from South C’liny ’bout a year ago, ’count of his wife’s health, an’ settled in Carson.” “Looks like,” said another voice, “that they could ’a’ got along ’thout a furriner to tell ’em what to do.” “He’s high up in the lodge,” said Uncle Ranz Ponder, the half-brother of Uncle Nathe, “an’ he seems mighty frien’ly.” The old and impressive service was solemnly conducted to the end, and there was a general breaking-up, amid a conflict of invitations for everybody to go home with everybody else for dinner. “We’ll go with Aunt Lizy,” said Serena. “They’s a lot been astin’ me, but they ain’t none of ’em pulled the buttons off my clo’s tryin’ to take me with ’em, an’ I know we’ll be full welcome at Aunt Lizy’s. Uncle Ranz, he’s her cousin, he’ll be there, like I said.”