"Like enough; but even if folks has ben through seas o' trouble, they needn't be everlastin'ly spittin' up salt brine. 'Passin' through the valley of sorrow they make it full o' fountings;' that's what the Psalms says 'bout bearin' trouble." "Lyddy warn't much on fountings," said Aunt Hitty contemplatively; "but, there, we hadn't ought to speak nothin' but good o' the dead. Land sakes! You'd oughter heard Elder Weekses remarks; they was splendid. We ain't hed better remarks to any fun'ral here for years. I shouldn't 'a' suspicioned he was preachin' 'bout Lyddy, though. Our minister's sick abed, you know, 'n' warn't able to conduct the ex'cises. Si thinks he went to bed a-purpose, but I wouldn't hev it repeated; so David got Elder Weeks from Moderation. He warn't much acquainted with the remains, but he done all the better for that. He's got a wond'ful faculty for fun'rals. They say he's sent for for miles around. He'd just come from a fun'ral nine miles the other side o' Moderation, up on the Blueb'ry road; so he was a leetle mite late, 'n' David 'n' I was as nervous as witches, for every room was cram full 'n' the thermometer stood at 87 in the front entry, 'n' the bearers sot out there by the well-curb, with the sun beatin' down on 'em, 'n' two of 'em, Squire Hicks 'n' Deacon Dunn, was fast asleep. Inside, everything was as silent 's the tomb, 'cept the kitchen clock, 'n' that ticked loud enough to wake the dead most. I thought I should go inter conniptions. I set out to git up 'n' throw a shawl over it, it ticked so loud. Then, while we was all settin' there 's solemn 's the last trump, what does old Aunt Beccy Burnham do but git up from the kitchen corner where she sot, take the corn-broom from behind the door, and sweep down a cobweb that was lodged up in one o' the corners over the mantelpiece! We all looked at one 'nother, 'n' I thought for a second somebody 'd laugh, but nobody dassed, 'n' there warn't a sound in the room 's Aunt Beccy sot down agin' without movin' a muscle in her face. Just then the minister drove in the yard with his horse sweatin' like rain; but behind time as he was, he never slighted things a mite. His prayer was twenty-three minutes by the clock. Twenty-three minutes is a leetle mite too long this kind o' weather, but it was an all-embracin' prayer, 'n' no mistake! Si said when he got through the Lord had his instructions on most any p'int that was likely to come up durin' the season. When he got through his remarks there warn't a dry eye in the room. I don't s'pose it made any odds whether he was preachin' 'bout Mis' Pettigrove or the woman on the Blueb'ry road,--it was a movin', elevatin' discourse, 'n' that was what we went there for."