"'Mother o' God,' says she, swallowin' in her breath.
"But she done it. She knelt down there in the grave, her poor, frowzy head showin,' an' she tacked away like we told her to, an' she never said another word. Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb didn't say nothin', either, only looked at me mother-knowin'. Them two—Mis' Toplady more'n anybody in Friendship, acts like bein' useful is bein' alive an' nothin' else is. They see what I was doin', well enough—only I donno's they'd 'a' called it what I did, 'bout the Lord's housekeepin' an all. An' I knew I couldn't gentle 'Leven into the i-dee, but I judged I could shock it into her—same as her an' the Big Lil kind have to hev. Some folks you hev to shoot i-dees at, muzzle to brain.
"I donno if you've took it in that when you're in a grave, or 'round one, your talk sort o' veers that way? Ours did. Mis' Banker Mason's baby had just died in March, an' the choir'd made an awful scandal, breakin' down in the fifth verse of 'One poor flower has drooped and faded.' They'd stood 'em in a half circle where they could look right down on the little thing. An' when the choir got to
"But we feel no thought of sadness
For our friend is happy now,
She has knelt in heartfelt gladness
Where the holy angels bow,
they just naturally broke down an' cried, every one of 'em. An' then the little coffin was some to blame, too—it was sort of a little Lord Fauntleroy coffin, with a broad white puff around, an' most anybody would a' cried when they looked in it, even empty. But Doctor June, he just stood up calm, like his soul was his body, an' he begun to pray like God was there in the parlour, Him feelin' as bad as we, an' not doin' the child's death Himself at all, like we'd been taught—but sorrowin' with us, for some o' His housekeepin' gone wrong. An' by the time Banker an' Mis' Mason got in the close' carriage an' took the little thing's casket on their knees—you know we do that here, not havin' any white hearse—why, we was all feelin' like God Almighty was hand in hand in sorrow with us. An' it's never left me since. I know He is.
"We talked that over while 'Leven tacked the evergreen on the white cloth. An' I know Mis' Toplady says she'd stayed with Mis' Banker Mason so much since then that she felt God had sort o' singled her—Mis' Toplady—out, to give her a chanst to do His work o' comfortin'. 'I've just let my house go,' s'she, 'an' I've got the grace to see it don't matter if I have.' Mis' Toplady ain't one o' them turtle women that their houses is shells on 'em, burden to back. She's more the bird kind—neat little nest under, an' wings to be used every day, somewheres in the blue.
"So 'Leven done all Jennie Crapwell's grave. She must 'a been down in it an hour. An' when she got through, an' looked up at us from down in the green, an' wearin' Jennie's shroud an' all, I just put out my hands, to help her up, an' I thought, almost like prayin': 'Oh, raise up, you Dead, an' come forth—come forth.' Sort o' like Lazarus. An' I know I wasn't sacrilegious from what happened; for when Mis' Toplady an' Miss Holcomb come up to 'Leven an' says, rill warm, how well she'd done it an' how much obliged they was, I see that little look on the girl's face again like—oh, like she'd wrote somethin' on the blurry page, somethin' you could read.
"Jennie was buried that afternoon at sharp three. It was a sad funeral, 'count o' Jennie's trouble, an' all. But it was a rill big funeral an' nicely conducted, if I do say that done the managin'. Mis' Postmaster Sykes seated the guests—ain't she the kind that always seems to be one to stand in the hall at funerals with her hat off, to consult about chairs an' where shall the minister lay his Bible, an' who'd ought to be invited to set next the bier? An' she always takes charge o' the flowers. Mis' Sykes can tell you who sent what flowers to who for years back, an the wordin' on the pillows. She's got a rill gift that way. But I done the managin' behind the scenes, an' it went off rill well, an' I got the minister to drop a flower on Jennie's coffin instead of a pinch o' dirt. An' one chair I did see to: right in the bay, near Jennie, I set 'Leven—I guess with just a kind of a blind feelin' that I wanted to get her near. Near the flowers or the singin' or what the minister said or,—oh, near the mystery an' God speakin' from the dead, like He does. Anyway, I shoved her into the bay window back o' the casket, an' there I left her in behind a looped-back Nottingham—settin' in Jennie's shroud an' didn't either of 'em know it.
"It was a queer chapter for Doctor June to read, some said—but I guess holy things often is queer, only we're better cut out to see queer than holy. Anyway, his voice went all mellow and gentle, boomin' out soft an' in his throat, all over the house. It was that about ..." Calliope quoted piecemeal:—
"'Awake, awake, put on thy strength ... put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ... shake thyself from the dust, arise and sit down ... loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion ... how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! Break forth into joy, sing together ... depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing ... be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord....'