After a while I got up and asked a cheerful-lookin’ negro “where the mourners wuz?”
“Wall, misses,” sez he, “I spoze I am about as much of a mourner as there is.”
He looked anything but mournful, but he went on:
“I married dis ole man’s stepdaughter, an’ consequentially she died. An’ den dis ole man got a kick from a mule, an’ laid he flat on his back; den he got his head stove in with a chimbly fallin’ on it; den de airysipples sot in, an’ de rheumaticks, an’ nurality, an’ foh years desese has jes’ fed on him, an’ de ultamatim of it wuz he died. An’ I spoze I am jes’ about as much of a mourner heah as you’ll find.”
And sayin’ this, the radiant-faced mourner turned away and joined some friends.
As I turned back I met the colored preacher and his wife, who wuz evidently takin’ a short road home acrost the graveyard.
ONE OF THE MOURNERS.
She wuz a good-lookin’ mulatto woman, and I passed the time of day with her by sayin’, “How do you do?” and etc.