“Of cose he died. Now, dar am in dis audnance many no doubt dat tink dey have got riches, an’ honoh, an’ fame; but Gawge Perkins am daid, an’ you have to go and see Gawge Perkins. “An’ you may tink you are gay, an’ happy, an’ in high sperits; but dis fac’ remains, an’ you can’t get round dis fac’, Gawge Perkins am daid, an’ you have got to go and see Gawge Perkins. “But dar am one consolation, Gawge Perkins can’t come back to us.” Durin’ the sermon he spoke of the last day and the sureness of its comin’, and the impossibility of tellin’ when it would come. “Why,” sez he, “it hain’t known on earth, nor in heaven; de angels am not awaih of de time; why, Michael Angelo himself don’t know it.” But through the whole sermon he dwelt on this great truth—that they must all go to see George Perkins, and, crowning consolation, George Perkins could not come back to them! The mourners seemed edified and instructed by his talk, so I spoze there wuz some subtle good and power in it that mebby I wuzn’t good enough to see. And I have felt jest so many a time when I have heard a white preacher hold forth for two hours at a Jonesville funeral till my limbs wuz paralyzed and my brain reeled; and the mourners had added to their other affliction, almost the num palsy. Their legs would go to sleep anyway, and so forget their troubles (the legs). As the colored graveyard wuz only a little ways from the cabin, I followed the mourners at a short distance, and saw George Perkins laid in the ground to take his long sleep, with tears and honest grief to hallow the spot. What more, sez I to myself, could an emperor want, or a zar? A quiet spot to rest in, and a place in the hearts left behind. After the funeral crowd had dispersed I sot down under a pine-tree with spreading branches, and thought I would rest awhile. And even as I sot there another funeral wended its way into the old yard, which did not surprise me so much, nor would it any deep philosopher of human nater. For we well know when things get to happenin’ they will keep right on. Human events go by waves, as it wuz—suicides, joys, broken dishes, griefs, visitors, etc., etc. So I sot there a moralizin’ some on the queerness of this world, as I see the rough coffin a bein’ lowered into the ground. But one thing struck me as being singular—there wuz no mourners to be seen. After a while I got up and asked a cheerful-lookin’ negro “where the mourners wuz?” “Wall, misses,” sez he, “I spoze I am about as much of a mourner as there is.” He looked anything but mournful, but he went on: “I married dis ole man’s stepdaughter, an’ consequentially she died. An’ den dis ole man got a kick from a mule, an’ laid he flat on his back; den he got his head stove in with a chimbly fallin’ on it; den de airysipples sot in, an’ de rheumaticks, an’ nurality, an’ foh years desese has jes’ fed on him, an’ de ultamatim of it wuz he died. An’ I spoze I am jes’ about as much of a mourner heah as you’ll find.”