nd had
left the bulk of his estate to foreign missions, and only a bare support
to his wife. As he had acquired his property by selling liquor it was
but natural he should wish to make a restitution in the land of the
heathen. The widow, my aunt, lived to an advanced age. When she died I
accompanied my family to her obsequies. There I met her other young
nephews and nieces besides the children of the neighborhood. We had a
merry time together all day except for the hour of the services. There
was a general feast served for everybody. The children were served at a
second table, but there was a plentiful supply of goodies reserved for
us and no tears to check our appetites. At the table we were told that
our aunt had left us each fifty dollars. I had never heard of, least of
all, seen such a sum of money and I conjectured it was enough to last
the remainder of our lives.

A great deal takes place at a country funeral characteristic of the
kindly as well as the weaker side of rustic men and women. There is much
bustle and subdued cheerfulness mingled with awe; conversation is
carried on in whispers. The chief mourners are permitted to be as
helpless as they please; everything is done for them; they are treated
as automatons. They are arranged in ranks next to the corpse according
to consanguinity. Then come the neighbors and those persons who love to
attend funerals. Children bring up the rear and in the hall and doorway
lean a few men who seem to have no particular relation to the occasion.
The important personage, not excepting the minister, is the volunteer
undertaker, who for some unknown reason, has become the man usually
called upon to officiate at the exercises. He knows his business, and
for an hour feels himself a man of consequence. He is impartial in his
attentions; be the dead old or young, saint or sinner, he is equally
anxious that the ceremonies shall be conducted with proper decency and
order. The rich give him a little more care, as they, perhaps, have
rendered unto their dead a handsomer outfit for their last appearance
and farewell journey; such I think may have been the case when our
distinguished neighbors, the Scammels and Pennimans passed away. When
the minister has concluded his remarks and his prayer, generally in the
most lugubrious words and scriptural phrases he can muster, the man in
charge of the funeral, (for country people knew no such professional
name as undertaker), comes briskly forward,