In about a quarter, or from that to three-quarters of a
minute, he would be propping up the smoke-stack on the upper deck and
cursing. I wonder how the faithful old relic is going to sell?

A REMINISCENCE OF THE BACK SETTLEMENTS

"Now that corpse [said the undertaker, patting the folded hands of the
deceased approvingly] was a brick--every way you took him he was a brick.
He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and simple in his last
moments. Friends wanted metallic burial case--nothing else would do.
I couldn't get it. There warn't going to be time anybody could see that.
Corpse said never mind, shake him up some kind of a box he could stretch
out in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it.
Said he went more on room than style, any way, in the last final
container. Friends wanted a silver door-plate on the coffin, signifying
who he was and wher' he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust
out such a gaily thing as that in a little country town like this. What
did corpse say? Corpse said, whitewash his old canoe and dob his address
and general destination onto it with a blacking brush and a stencil
plate, long with a verse from some likely hymn or other, and pint him for
the tomb, and mark him C. O. D., and just let him skip along. He warn't
distressed any more than you be--on the contrary just as carm and
collected as a hearse-horse; said he judged that wher' he was going to,
a body would find it considerable better to attract attention by a
picturesque moral character than a natty burial case with a swell
doorplate on it. Splendid man, he was. I'd druther do for a corpse like
that 'n any I've tackled in seven year. There's some satisfaction in
buryin' a man like that. You feel that what you're doing is appreciated.
Lord bless you, so's he got planted before he sp'iled, he was perfectly
satisfied; said his relations meant well, perfectly well, but all them
preparations was bound to delay the thing more or less, and he didn't
wish to be kept layin' round. You never see such a clear head as what he
had--and so carm and so cool. Just a hunk of brains that is what he was.
Perfectly awful. It was a ripping distance from one end of that man's
head to t'other. Often and over again he's had brain fever a-raging in
one place, and the rest of the pile didn't know anything about it--didn't
affect it any more than an Injun insurrection in Arizona affects the
Atlantic