childern has
plenty o' reason to look sad, I tell you."

She brushed the tears off the cheek of her little son whom she had
slapped a moment before. She was tender now.

One woman bent down and whispered into her child's ear as she pointed
with one cotton-gloved finger, "See, Johnny, see little Freddie, there;
he 'ain't got no mother no more. Pore little Freddie! ain't you sorry
fur him?" The child nodded, and gazed with open-eyed wonder at "little
Freddie" as if he were of a new species.

The curtains, stirred by the blast through the loose windows, flapped
dismally, and the people drew their wraps about them, for the fireless
room was cold. Steadily, insistently, the hive-like drone of
conversation murmured on.

"I wonder who 's a-goin' to preach the funeral," asked one.

"Oh, Mr. Simpson, of the Methodist Church, of course: she used to go to
that church years ago, you know, before she backslid."

"That 's jest what I 've allus said about people that falls from grace.
You know the last state o' that man is worse than the first."

"Ah, that 's true enough."

"It 's a-puttin' yore hand to the ploughshare an' then turnin' back."

"I wonder what the preacher 'll have to say fur her. It 's a mighty hard
case to preach about."

"I 'm wonderin' too what he 'll say, an' where he 'll preach her."

"Well, it 's hard to tell. You know the Methodists believe that there 's
'salvation to be found between the stirrup an' the ground.'"

"It 's a mighty comfortin' doctern, too."

"An' then they do say that she left some dyin' testimony; though I
'ain't never heerd tell the straight of it."

"He can't preach her into heaven, o' course, after her life. Leastways
it don't hardly seem like it would be right an' proper."

"Well, I don't think he kin preach her into hell, neither. After a
woman has gone through all that pore Margar't has, it seems to me that
the Lord ought to give her some consideration, even if men don't."

"I do declare, Seely Matthews, with yore free thinkin' an' free
speakin', you 're put' nigh a infidel."

"No, I ain't no infidel, neither, but I ain't one o' them that sings,
'When all thy mercies, O my God,' and thinks o' the Lord as if He was a
great big cruel man."

"Well, I don't neither; but--"

"'Sh! 'sh!"

The woman's declaration of principle was cut short by the entrance of
the minister, the Rev. Mr. Simpson. He was a tall, gaunt man, in a coat
of rusty black. His hair, of an indetermina