HE BIG CHAIR."]

He took S. Annie and the brackets, the piano and hangin' lamps and
baskets and crystal bead lambrequins, her father had gin her, moved
'em all into a good, sensible, small house, and went to work to get a
practice and a livin'. He was a lawyer by perswasion.

Wall, he worked hard, day and night, for three little children come to
'em pretty fast, and S. Annie consumed a good deal in trimmin's and
cheap lace to ornament 'em; she wuz her father's own girl for ornament.
But he worked so hard, and had so many irons in the fire, and kep' 'em
all so hot, that he got a good livin' for 'em, and begun to lay up money
towards buyin' 'em a house--a home.

He talked a sight, so folks said that knew him well, about his consumin'
desire and aim to get his wife and children into a little home of their
own, into a safe little haven, where they could live if he wuz called
away. They say that that wuz on his mind day and night, and wuz what
nerved his hand so in the fray, and made him so successful. Wall, he had
laid up about nine hundred dollars towards a home, every dollar on
it earned by hard work and consecrated by this deathless hope and
affection. The house he had got his mind on only cost about a thousand
dollars. Loontown property is cheap.

Wall, he had laid up nine hundred, and wuz a-beginnin' to save on the
last hundred, for he wouldn't run in debt a cent any way, when he wuz
took voyalent sick there to Cephas'ses; he and S. Annie had come home
for a visit of a day or two, and he bein' so run down, and weak with his
hard day work and his night work, that he suckumbed to his sickness, and
passed away the day before I got there.

Wall, S. Annie wuz jest overcome with grief the day I got there, but the
day follerin' she begun to take some interest and help her father in
makin' preparations for the funeral.

The body wuz embalmed, accordin' to Cephas'ses and S. Annie's wish, and
the funeral wuz to be on the Sunday follerin', and on that Cephas and S.
Annie now bent their energies.

To begin with, S. Annie had a hull suit of clear crape made for herself,
with a veil that touched the ground; she also had three other suits
commenced, for more common wear, trimmed heavy with crape, one of which
she ordered for sure the next week, for she said, "she couldn't stir out
of the house in any other color but black."

I knew jest how dear crape wuz, and I tackled her on the subject, and
sez I--

"Do you know, S. Ann