“Such a life as Wellington's don't need no monument to carry up the story of his virtues into the heavens; it is known there already. And them that mourn his loss don't need cold marble words to recall his goodness and faithfulness. The heart where the shadow of his eternal absence has fell don't need crape to make it darker.
“Wellington wouldn't be forgot if S. Annie wore pure white from day today. No, nobody that knew Wellington, from all I have hearn of him, needs crape to remind 'em that he wuz once here and now is gone.
“Howsomever, as fur as that is concerned, I always feel that mourners must do as they are a mind to about crape, with fear and tremblin'—that is, if they are well off, and can do as they are a mind to; and the same with monuments, flowers, empty coaches, etc. But in this case, Cephas Bodley, I wouldn't be a doin' my duty if I didn't speak my mind. When I look at these little helpless souls that are left in a cold world with nothin' to stand between them and want but the small means their pa worked so hard for and left for the express purpose of takin' care of 'em, it seems to me a foolish thing, and a cruel thing, to spend all that money on what is entirely onnecessary.”
“Onnecessary!” sez Cephas, angrily. “Agin I say, Josiah Allen's wife, that if it wuzn't for our close relationship I should turn on you. A worm will turn,” sez he, “if it is too hardly trampled on.”
“I hain't trampled on you,” sez I, “nor hain't had no idea on't. I wuz only statin' the solemn facts and truth of the matter. And you will see it some time, Cephas Bodley, if you don't now.”
Sez Cephas, “The worm has turned, Josiah Allen's wife! Yes, I feel that I have got to look now to more distant relations for comfort. Yes, the worm has been stomped on too heavy.”
He looked cold, cold as a iceickle almost. And I see that jest the few words I had spoke, jest the slight hints I had gin, hadn't been took as they should have been took. So I said no more. For agin the remark of that little bad boy came up in my mind and restrained me from sayin' any more.
Truly, as the young male child observed, “it wuzn't my funeral.”
We went home almost immegiately afterwards, my heart nearly a-bleedin' for the little children, poor little creeters, and Cephas actin' cold and distant to the last And we hain't seen 'em sence. But news has come from them, and come straight. Josiah heerd to Jonesville all about it. And though it is hitchin' the democrat buggy on front of the mare—to tell the end of the funeral here—yet I may as well tell it now and be done with it.
The miller at Loontown wuz down to the Jonesville mill to get the loan of some bags, and Josiah happened to be there to mill that day, and heerd all about it.