When I told him that I rid down there with Deacon Gansey, that man acted jealous and mad as a hen. He never liked him, they fell out years ago about a rail fence, and wuz hurt. But now he acted furious, and his last words to Bildad wuz:
“I want you to have a funeral for Deacon Gansey before I see you agin, and I’ll pick out the him I want you to sing at his funeral:
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“Believein’, we rejoice, To see the cuss removed.” |
But I spoke right up and sez, “Don’t you bury him till he is dead, Bildad, no matter who tells you to.”
And Josiah didn’t like that, or acted as if he didn’t; mebby he wuz subterfugin’ to draw off attention. Truly, pardners is a mysterious 307 problem, and it takes sights of wisdom and patience to solve’ em, and sometimes you can’t git the right answer to ’em then, male or female.
As we left Surf Avenue I looked back on the blackened ruins of what had been the fair City of Dreamland, the broken totterin’ remains of that glorious tower, the black tangled masses of iron and steel, the ruins of the great animal house mixed with the ashes of a hundred and twenty animals, and I see with my mind’s eye that great flat plain of blackened ruins, all cleared away, and green velvety grass, and trees, and fountains sprayin’ over shrubs, and flowers, and white smooth paths windin’ through the bloom and verdure clear down to the clean sand of the water’s verge. And the high fence of Exclusion that shets them from other fair parks along the shore removed, thousands and thousands and thousands of happy children playin’ there in the pure air, takin’ in in one summer day enough strength to last ’em through a crowded, suffocatin’, weary week. And grown folks, rich and poor, tired of city sights and sounds, strollin’ about or settin’ on comfortable seats lookin’ off on the water, or watchin’ the play of their children, the fresh air blowin’ some of their cares and troubles away.