with honest pride, and she
humbly thanked her Maker that she had been bred to the use of scissors
and needle.

Two days of this intoxicating popularity had just passed; the funeral
was over, and she ran in to the White Farm on her way home, to carry a
message, and to see with her own eyes how Samantha Ann Ripley was
comporting herself.

"You didn't git out to the fun'ral, did ye, Samanthy?" she asked, as she
seated herself cosily by the kitchen window.

"No, I didn't. I never could see the propriety o' goin' to see folks
dead that you never went to see alive."

"How you talk! That's one way o' puttin' it! Well, everybody was lookin'
for you, and you missed a very pleasant fun'ral. David 'n' I arranged
everything as neat as wax, and it all went off like clock-work, if I do
say so as shouldn't. Mis' Pettigrove made a beautiful remains."

"I'm glad to hear it. It's the first beautiful thing she ever did make,
I guess!"

"How you talk! Ain't you a leetle hard on Lyddy, Samanthy? She warn't
sech a bad neighbor, and she couldn't help bein' kind o' sour like. She
was born with her teeth on aidge, to begin with, and then she'd ben
through seas o' trouble with them Pettigroves."

"Like enough; but even if folks has ben through seas o' trouble, they
needn't be everlastin'ly spittin' up salt brine. 'Passin' through the
valley of sorrow they make it full o' fountings;' that's what the Psalms
says 'bout bearin' trouble."

"Lyddy warn't much on fountings," said Aunt Hitty contemplatively; "but,
there, we hadn't ought to speak nothin' but good o' the dead. Land
sakes! You'd oughter heard Elder Weekses remarks; they was splendid. We
ain't hed better remarks to any fun'ral here for years. I shouldn't 'a'
suspicioned he was preachin' 'bout Lyddy, though. Our minister's sick
abed, you know, 'n' warn't able to conduct the ex'cises. Si thinks he
went to bed a-purpose, but I wouldn't hev it repeated; so David got
Elder Weeks from Moderation. He warn't much acquainted with the remains,
but he done all the better for that. He's got a wond'ful faculty for
fun'rals. They say he's sent for for miles around. He'd just come from
a fun'ral nine miles the other side o' Moderation, up on the Blueb'ry
road; so he was a leetle mite late, 'n' David 'n' I was as nervous as
witches, for every room was cram full 'n' the thermometer stood at 87 in
the front entry, 'n' the bearers sot out there by the well-curb, with
the sun beatin' down on 'em, 'n'