"Why those tears, old woman?" asked Caleb.
"Where is your heart, Caleb, my boy?"
"In the twenty dollars you hold in your hand. Disgrace, and disgrace, and ever disgrace! The old man was a boaster in life and a pauper in death. Now you would spend for starch what I should spend for cigars. No more disgrace for the family, old woman. Eschew starch, bless your son, and hie you to the washtub."
He took the money and arranged it in the shape of a cigar.
Patsy looked lovingly at Caleb, and considered Rahab's offer to preach Benjamin's funeral sermon.
On the day of Benjamin's funeral Rahab was present. Patsy gave him a chair close to the coffin. The people were so seated that egress was impossible.
Leaning upon her crutches and gazing straight into Rahab's face, Patsy gave out, and the people sang: "A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify."
Rahab looked at the corpse; and, seeing a sermon in the cold, rigid form, turned and looked at Patsy. "Beware of the immediate future," said she.
Rahab trembled, stammered something, and looked at the ceiling. Patsy brought her crutch in close proximity to his head.
Said she, keeping her crutch in motion and her eye in Rahab's: "Words of the dead to the dead avail little. Were it not for your presence there would be no funeral sermon. The man in the coffin is not dead, but sleeping. Why should we disturb his slumbers? You have just life enough to hear your doom. Why should we not pronounce it?"