cover up a good many of the doctor's mistakes in his time, and he
didn't just like your symptoms. Said your looks reminded him of Bill
Shorter, who' went off sudden in the fifties, and was buried by the
Masons with a brass band. Asked if you remembered Bill, and that
peculiar pasty look about his skin. Naturally, this sort of thing
didn't make Ab any too popular, and so Binder got a pretty warm
welcome when he struck town.

He started right out by saying that he didn't see any good reason why
an undertaker should act as if he was the next of kin. Was always
stopping people on the streets to tell them the latest, and yelling
out the point in a horse-laugh. Everybody allowed that jolly old
Binder had the right idea; and that Magoffin might as well shut up
shop. Every one in town wanted to see him officiate at a funeral, and
there was a lot of talk about encouraging new enterprises, but it
didn't come to anything. No one appeared to have any public spirit.

Seemed as if we'd never had a healthier spring than that one. Couldn't
fetch a nigger, even. The most unpopular man in town, Miser Dosher,
came down with pneumonia in December, and every one went around saying
how sad it was that there was no hope, and watching for Binder to
start for the house. But in the end Dosher rallied and "went back on
the town," as Si Perkins put it. Then the Hoskins-Bustard crowds took
a crack at each other one court day, but it was mighty poor shooting.
Ham Hoskins did get a few buckshot in his leg, and that had to come
off, but there were no complications.

By this time Binder, though he still laughed and cracked his jokes,
was beginning to get sort of discouraged. But Si Perkins used to go
round and cheer him up by telling him that it was bound to come his