“Yes,” says Abel. “And she will do that nobly, and I will help her. They are all goin’ to the funeral, too, in deep-black dresses.” He said “they wuz too little to realize it now, but in later and maturer years it would be a comfort to ’em to know they had took part in such a funeral as that wuz goin’ to be, and wuz dressed in black.” “Wall,” says I (in a quite onassumin’ way I would gin little hints of my mind on the subject), “I am afraid that will be about all the comforts of life the poor little children will ever have,” says I. “It will if you buy many more flower-pieces and crape dresses.” Abel said “it wouldn’t take much crape for the children’s dresses, they wuz so little, only the baby’s: that would have to be long.” Says I, “The baby would look better in white, and it will take sights of crape for a long baby dress.” “Yes, but S. Annie can use it afterwards for veils. She is very economical; she takes it from me. And she feels jest as I do, that the baby must wear it in respect to her father’s memory.” Says I, “The baby don’t know crape from a clothes-pin.” “No,” says Abel, “but in after-years the thought of the respect she showed will sustain her.” “Wall,” says I, “I guess she won’t have much besides thoughts to live on, if things go on in this way.” I would give little hints in this way, but they wuzn’t took. Things went right on as if I hadn’t spoke. And I couldn’t contend, for truly, as a bad little boy said once on a similar occasion, “it wuzn’t my funeral,” so I had to set and work on that insane bedquilt and see it go on. But I sithed constant and frequent, and when I wuz all alone in the room I indulged in a few low groans. Two dress-makers wuz in the house, to stay all the time till the dresses wuz done; and clerks would come around, if not oftener, with packages of mournin’ goods and mournin’ jewelry, and mournin’ handkerchiefs, and mournin’ stockin’s, and mournin’ stockin’-supporters, and mournin’ safety-pins, and etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. Every one of ’em, I knew, a-wrenchin’ boards offen the sides of that house that Harrison had worked so hard to get for his wife and little ones. Wall, the day of the funeral come. It wuz a wet, drizzly day, but Abel wuz up early, to see that everything wuz as he wanted it to be. As far as I wuz concerned, I had done my duty, for the crazy bedquilt wuz done; and though brains might totter as they looked at it, I felt that it wuzn’t my fault. Sally Ann spread it out with complacency over the lounge, and thanked me, with tears in her eyes, for my noble deed. Along quite early in the mornin’, before the show commenced, I went in to see Harrison. He lay there calm and peaceful, with a look on his face as if he had got away, at last from a atmosphere of show and sham, and had got into the great Reality of life. [Illustration: “Alone, and lonesome as a dog.”]