ells 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 th
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