第28章 A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS.(6)

She hoped that Elder Weeks would be adequate in the latter direction. She knew she couldn't for the life of her think of anything interesting about Mrs. Butterfield, save that she possessed nineteen coffin plates, and brought her hens to Edgewood every summer for their health; but she had heard Elder Weeks make a moving discourse out of less than that.

To be sure, he needed priming, but she was equal to that.

There was Ivory Brown's funeral: how would that have gone on if it hadn't been for her? Wasn't the elder ten minutes late, and what would his remarks have amounted to without her suggestions?

You might almost say she was the author of the discourse, for she gave him all the appropriate ideas. As she had helped him out of the wagon she had said: "Are you prepared? I thought not; but there's no time to lose. Remember there are aged parents; two brothers living, one railroading in Spokane Falls, the other clerking in Washington, D. C. Don't mention the Universalists,--there's ben two in the fam'ly; nor insanity,-- there 's ben one o' them. The girl in the corner by the clock is the one that the remains has been keeping comp'ny with.

If you can make some genteel allusions to her, it'll be much appreciated by his folks."

As to the long prayer, she knew that the Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied on to pray until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch him by the coat tails.

She had done it more than once. She had also, on one occasion, got up and straightened his ministerial neckerchief, which he had gradually "prayed" around his saintly neck until it was behind the right ear.

These plans proved so fascinating to aunt Hitty that she walked quite half a mile beyond Croft's, and was obliged to retrace her steps.

She conceived bands of black alpaca for the sleeves and hats of the pallbearers, and a festoon of the same over the front gate, if there should be any left over. She planned the singing by the choir.

There had been no real choir-singing at any funeral in Edgewood since the Rev. Joshua Beckwith had died. She would ask them to open with--Rebel mourner, cease your weepin'.

You too must die.

This was a favorite funeral hymn. The only difficulty would be in keeping aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a soprano skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could possibly sing it.

It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated; but it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder always looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief over his head before beginning the twenty-seven verses.

After the long prayer, she would have Almira Berry give for a solo--This gro-o-oanin' world 's too dark and dre-e-ar for the saints' e - ter - nal rest, This hymn, if it did not wholly reconcile one to death, enabled one to look upon life with sufficient solemnity.

It was a thousand pities, she thought, that the old hearse was so shabby and rickety, and that Gooly Eldridge, who drove it, would insist on wearing a faded peach-blow overcoat.

It was exasperating to think of the public spirit at Egypt, and contrast it with the state of things at Pleasant River.

In Egypt they had sold the old hearse house for a sausage shop, and now they were having hearse sociables every month to raise money for a new one.

All these details flew through aunt Hitty's mind in fascinating procession. There shouldn't be "a hitch" anywhere.

There had been a hitch at her last funeral, but she had been only an assistant there. Matt Henderson had been struck by lightning at the foot of Squire Bean's old nooning tree, and certain circumstances combined to make the funeral one of unusual interest, so much so that fat old Mrs. Potter from Deerwander created a sensation at the cemetery.

She was so anxious to get where she could see everything to the best advantage that she crowded too near the bier, stepped on the sliding earth, and pitched into the grave.

As she weighed over two hundred pounds, and was in a position of some disadvantage, it took five men to extricate her from the dilemma, and the operation made a long and somewhat awkward break in the religious services. Aunt Hitty always said of this catastrophe, "If I'd 'a' ben Mis' Potter, I'd 'a' ben so mortified I believe I'd 'a' said, 'I wa'n't plannin' to be buried, but now I'm in here I declare I'll stop!'"

Old Mrs. Butterfield's funeral was not only voted an entire success by the villagers, but the seal of professional approval was set upon it by an undertaker from Saco, who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could make a handsome living in the funeral line anywhere. Providence, who always assists those who assist themselves, decreed that the niece Lyddy Ann should not arrive until the aunt was safely buried; so, there being none to resist her right or grudge her the privilege aunt Hitty, for the first time in her life, rode in the next buggy to the hearse. Si, in his best suit, a broad weed and weepers, drove Cyse Higgins's black colt, and aunt Hitty was dressed in deep mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's crape veil over her face, and in her hand a palmleaf fan tied with a black ribbon.

Her comment to Si, as she went to her virtuous couch that night, was:

"It was an awful dry funeral, but that was the only flaw in it.

It would 'a' ben perfect if there' ben anybody to shed tears.

I come pretty nigh it myself, though I ain't no relation, when Elder Weeks said, 'You'll go round the house, my sisters, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the orchard, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the barn and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the shed, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the hencoop, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there!'

That would 'a' drawed tears from a stone most, 'specially sence Mis' Butterfield set such store by her hens."

And this is the way that Lyddy Butterfield came into her kingdom, a little lone brown house on the river's brim.