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 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.
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