is fust an' only love--"

"Hillard," said Uncle Dave rising, "I hate to--"

"Set down, David Dickey," whispered Aunt Sally, hotly, as she hastily
jerked him back in his seat with a snap that rattled the teeth in his
head:

"If you get up at this time of life to make any post-mortem an' dyin'
declaration on that subject in my presence, ye'll be takin' out a
corpse sho' 'nuff!"

Uncle Dave very promptly subsided.

"An' the only child he's had is the present beautiful daughter that
sits beside him."

Tilly blushed.

"David, I am very sorry to say, had some very serious personal
faults. He always slept with his mouth open. I've knowed him to snore
so loud after dinner that the folks on the adjoining farm thought it
was the dinner horn."

"Now Hillard," said Uncle Dave, rising--"do you think it necessary to
bring in all that?"

"A man's fun'ral," said the Bishop, "ain't intended to do him any
good--it's fur the coming generation. Boys and girls, beware of
sleepin' with yo' mouth open an' eatin' with yo' fingers an' drinkin'
yo' coffee out of the saucer, an' sayin' _them molasses_ an' _I
wouldn't choose any_ when you're axed to have somethin' at the table.

"Dave Dickey done all that.

"Brother Dave Dickey had his faults as we all have. He was a
sprinklin' of good an' evil, a mixture of diligence an' laziness, a
brave man mostly with a few yaller crosses in him, truthful nearly
always, an' lyin' mostly fur fun an' from habit; good at times an'
bad at others, spiritual at times when it looked like he cu'd see
right into heaven's gate, an' then again racked with great passions
of the flesh that swept over him in waves of hot desires, until it
seemed that God had forgotten to make him anything but an animal.

"Come to think of it, an' that's about the way with the rest of us?

"But he aimed to do right, an' he strove constantly to do right, an'
he prayed constantly fur help to do right, an' that's the main thing.
If he fell he riz agin, fur he had a Hand outstretched in his faith
that cu'd lift him up, an' knew that he could go to a Father that
always forgave--an' that's the main thing. Let us remember, when we
see the faults and vices of others--that we see only what they've
done--as Bobby Burns says, we don't kno' what they have resisted.
Give 'em credit for that--maybe it over-balances. Balancin'--ah, my
bretherin, that's a gran' thing. It's the thing on which the whole
Universe hangs--the law of balance. Th