s was not on speaking terms
with the old man, on account of his disapp'inting him. He got one of his
feet froze, and lost money, too, becuz old Robbins took a favorable turn
and got well. The next time Robbins got sick, Jacops tried to make up
with him, and varnished up the same old coffin and fetched it along; but
old Robbins was too many for him; he had him in, and 'peared to be
powerful weak; he bought the coffin for ten dollars and Jacops was to pay
it back and twenty-five more besides if Robbins didn't like the coffin
after he'd tried it. And then Robbins died, and at the funeral he
bursted off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the parson to let
up on the performances, becuz he could not stand such a coffin as that.
You see he had been in a trance once before, when he was young, and he
took the chances on another, cal'lating that if he made the trip it was
money in his pocket, and if he missed fire he couldn't lose a cent. And
by George he sued Jacops for the rhino and got jedgment; and he set up
the coffin in his back parlor and said he 'lowed to take his time, now.
It was always an aggravation to Jacops, the way that miserable old thing
acted. He moved back to Indiany pretty soon--went to Wellsville
--Wellsville was the place the Hogadorns was from. Mighty fine family.
Old Maryland stock. Old Squire Hogadorn could carry around more mixed
licker, and cuss better than most any man I ever see. His second wife
was the widder Billings--she that was Becky Martin; her dam was deacon
Dunlap's first wife. Her oldest child, Maria, married a missionary and
died in grace--et up by the savages. They et him, too, poor feller
--biled him. It warn't the custom, so they say, but they explained to
friends of his'n that went down there to bring away his things, that
they'd tried missionaries every other way and never could get any good
out of 'em--and so it annoyed all his relations to find out that that
man's life was fooled away just out of a dern'd experiment, so to speak.
But mind you, there ain't anything ever reely lost; everything that
people can't understand and don't see the reason of does good if you only
hold on and give it a fair shake; Prov'dence don't fire no blank
ca'tridges, boys. That there missionary's substance, unbeknowns to
himself, actu'ly converted every last one of them heathens that took a
chance at the barbacue. Nothing ever fetched them but that. Don't tell
me it was an accident that h