'ca'se he don' wuk! Umph! if all de men in dis town dat
don' wuk wuz to be tuk up en sole, d' wouldn' be 'nough money in de town
to buy em! Don' I see 'em settin' 'roun' dese taverns f'om mohnin'
till night?"

Nature soon smiles upon her own ravages and strews our graves with
flowers, not as memories, but for other flowers when the spring returns.

It was one cool, brilliant morning late in that autumn. The air blew
fresh and invigorating, as though on the earth there were no corruption,
no death. Far southward had flown the plague. A spectator in the open
court square might have seen many signs of life returning to the town.
Students hurried along, talking eagerly. Merchants met for the first
time and spoke of the winter trade. An old negress, gayly and neatly
dressed, came into the market place, and sitting down on a sidewalk
displayed her yellow and red apples and fragrant gingerbread. She hummed
to herself an old cradle-song, and in her soft, motherly black eyes
shone a mild, happy radiance. A group of young ragamuffins eyed her
longingly from a distance. Court was to open for the first time since
the spring. The hour was early, and one by one the lawyers passed slowly
in. On the steps of the court-house three men were standing: Thomas
Brown, the sheriff; old Peter Leuba, who had just walked over from his
music store on Main Street; and little M. Giron, the French
confectioner. Each wore mourning on his hat, and their voices were low
and grave.

"Gentlemen," the sheriff was saying, "it was on this very spot the day
befoah the cholera broke out that I sole 'im as a vagrant. An' I did the
meanes' thing a man can evah do. I hel' 'im up to public ridicule foh
his weakness an' made spoht of 'is infirmities. I laughed at 'is povahty
an' 'is ole clo'es. I delivahed on 'im as complete an oration of
sarcastic detraction as I could prepare on the spot, out of my own
meanness an' with the vulgah sympathies of the crowd. Gentlemen, if I
only had that crowd heah now, an' ole King Sol'mon standin' in the midst
of it, that I might ask 'im to accept a humble public apology, offahed
from the heaht of one who feels himself unworthy to shake 'is han'! But
gentlemen, that crowd will nevah reassemble. Neahly ev'ry man of them is
dead, an' ole King Sol'mon buried them."

"He buried my friend Adolphe Xaupi," said Francois Giron, touching his
eyes with his handkerchief.

"There is a case of my best Jamaica rum for him whenever he com