“Bow-legged Spinny, the cabbagin’ tailor, was thar. He met the crowd while carryin’ home Squire Lockwood’s new suit, and catchin’ the excitement of the moment, tossed the package into Slawson’s yard, and it bounded into the well quicker than ‘scat.’ He didn’t know it though, but hollered to the old woman, as he ran past the window, to look arter the package until he got back. Not seein’ any package she allowed he was crazy as a cow with her head stuck in a barrel, and flew to boltin’ of her doors pooty lively. He had been once to the Lunatic Asylum, you see, and they were still suspicious of him.
“The crowd thought to head us off by takin’ down a narrow lane, and it was while they were in that, that they began to surge ahead of Judge Perkins. He was awful quick tempered, and pooty conceited, and when bow-legged Spinny was elbowin’ past him he got mad. Catching the poor stitcher by the coat tail, he hollered: ‘What! a miserable thread-needle machine claimin’ precedence?’ and with that he slung him more’n ten feet, landin’ him on his back in a nook of the fence.
“That was the day they buried old Mrs. Redpath, that the doctors disagreed over. Dr. Looty had been doctorin’ her for some time for bone disease. He said her back-bone war decayin’. He didn’t make much out of it though, and they got another doctor. The new feller said he understood the case thoroughly; he ridiculed the idea of bone disease, and went to work doctorin’ for the liver complaint. He said it had stopped workin’ and he was agwine to git it started ag’in. I reckon he’d have accomplished somethin’ if she had lived long enough, but she died in the meantime. When they held a post-mortem, they found out the old woman, some time in her life, had swallered a fish-bone which never passed her stomach, and eventually it killed her.
“‘Thar,’ ses Dr. Looty, ‘what did I tell ye? You’ll admit, I reckon, my diagnosis of the disease was right arter all, only I made a slight error in locatin’ the bone!’
“‘Bone be splintered!’ ses the other feller, ‘hain’t I bin workin’ nigher the ailin’ part than you?’ So they went on quackin’ thar and disagreein’ over her until old Redpath got mad and hollered, ‘You old melonheads, isn’t it enough that I’m a widderer by your fumblin’ malpractice, without havin’ ye wranglin’ over the old woman!’ So he put ’em both out, and chucked their knives and saws arter ’em.
“But as I was sayin’, that was the day of the funeral, and while it was proceedin’ from the church to the buryin’ ground with Parson Coolridge at the head, with his long white gown on, we hove in sight comin’ tearin’ down to’ards the parsonage. The minister was a feller that actewelly doted on flowers. When he wasn’t copyin’ his sermons’ he was fussin’ around among the posies. He had his gardin chock full of all kinds of plants and shrubs. Thar you could see the snapdragon from Ireland, the fu-chu from China, the snow-ball from Canada, the bachelor’s button from Californy, and every kind you could mention.
“He had noticed the gardin gate was open when the funeral passed, and it worried him considerable. So when he heered the hootin’ and hollerin’, and got sight of the crowd surgin’ down the street, and see the pig and I pointin’ in the direction of the house, he couldn’t go ahead nohow.
“Turnin’ around to the pall bearers who were puffing along behind him, he ses, ‘Ease your hands a minit, boys, and let the old woman rest ’till I run back and see if that Dudley is agwine to drive that hog into my gardin. Confound him!’ he contin’ed, ‘he’s wuss to have around the neighborhood than the measles.’ With that he started back on the run, his long, white gown a-flyin’ away out behind, the most comical lookin’ thing you ever see. And he could run, that Parson Coolridge, in a way that was astonishin’. I reckon he hadn’t stirred out of a walk before for thirty years, and yit he streaked it over the ground as though it was an every-day occurrence.
“His j’ints cracked and snapped with the unusual motion, like an old stairs in frosty weather, but he didn’t mind that so long as he could git over the ground. He was thinkin’ of his favorite plants and the prospect of their gittin’ stirred up and transplanted in a manner he wasn’t prepared to approve. He did jerk back his elbows pooty spiteful, now I can tell you. He tried to make the gateway fust, and put in his best strides. But when he saw he couldn’t, he hollered, ‘Keep that hog out of my gardin, Dudley, or I’ll take the law of ye.’
