“Why,” sez he, “it hain’t known on earth, nor in heaven; de angels am not awaih of de time; why, Michael Angelo himself don’t know it.”
But through the whole sermon he dwelt on this great truth—that they must all go to see George Perkins, and, crowning consolation, George Perkins could not come back to them!
The mourners seemed edified and instructed by his talk, so I spoze there wuz some subtle good and power in it that mebby I wuzn’t good enough to see.
And I have felt jest so many a time when I have heard a white preacher hold forth for two hours at a Jonesville funeral till my limbs wuz paralyzed and my brain reeled; and the mourners had added to their other affliction, almost the num palsy. Their legs would go to sleep anyway, and so forget their troubles (the legs).
As the colored graveyard wuz only a little ways from the cabin, I followed the mourners at a short distance, and saw George Perkins laid in the ground to take his long sleep, with tears and honest grief to hallow the spot.
What more, sez I to myself, could an emperor want, or a zar? A quiet spot to rest in, and a place in the hearts left behind.
After the funeral crowd had dispersed I sot down under a pine-tree with spreading branches, and thought I would rest awhile.
And even as I sot there another funeral wended its way into the old yard, which did not surprise me so much, nor would it any deep philosopher of human nater. For we well know when things get to happenin’ they will keep right on.
Human events go by waves, as it wuz—suicides, joys, broken dishes, griefs, visitors, etc., etc. So I sot there a moralizin’ some on the queerness of this world, as I see the rough coffin a bein’ lowered into the ground.
But one thing struck me as being singular—there wuz no mourners to be seen.