Cephas had got the monument, and the ornaments on it cost fur more than he expected. There wuz a wreath a-runnin' round it clear from the bottom to the top, and verses a kinder runnin' up it at the same time. And it cost fearful. Poetry a-runnin' up, they say, costs fur more than it duz on a level.

Any way, the two thousand dollars that wuz insured on Wellington's life wuzn't quite enough to pay for it. But the sale of his law library and the best of the housen' stuff paid it. The nine hundred he left went, every mite of it, to pay the funeral expenses and mournin' for the family.

And as bad luck always follers on in a procession, them mortgages of Cephas'ses all run out sort o' together. His creditors sold him out, and when his property wuz all disposed of it left him over fourteen hundred dollars in debt.

The creditors acted perfectly greedy, so they say—took everything they could; and one of the meanest ones took that insane bedquilt that I finished. That wuz mean. They say Sally Ann crumpled right down when that wuz took. Some say that they got hold of that tall weed of Cephas'ses, and some dispute it; some say that he wore it on the last ride he took in Loontown.

But, howsomever, Cephas wuz took sick, Sally Ann wuzn't able to do anything for their support, S. Annie wuz took down with the typhus, and so it happened the very day the monument wuz brought to the Loontown cemetery, Cephas Bodley's folks wuz carried to the county house, S. Annie, the children and all.

And it happened dretful curius, but the town hired that very team that drawed the monument there, to take the family back.

It wuz a good team.