'cept the kitchen clock, 'n' that ticked loud enough to wake the dead
most. I thought I should go inter conniptions. I set out to git up 'n'
throw a shawl over it, it ticked so loud. Then, while we was all settin'
there 's solemn 's the last trump, what does old Aunt Beccy Burnham do
but git up from the kitchen corner where she sot, take the corn-broom
from behind the door, and sweep down a cobweb that was lodged up in one
o' the corners over the mantelpiece! We all looked at one 'nother, 'n' I
thought for a second somebody 'd laugh, but nobody dassed, 'n' there
warn't a sound in the room 's Aunt Beccy sot down agin' without movin' a
muscle in her face. Just then the minister drove in the yard with his
horse sweatin' like rain; but behind time as he was, he never slighted
things a mite. His prayer was twenty-three minutes by the clock.
Twenty-three minutes is a leetle mite too long this kind o' weather, but
it was an all-embracin' prayer, 'n' no mistake! Si said when he got
through the Lord had his instructions on most any p'int that was likely
to come up durin' the season. When he got through his remarks there
warn't a dry eye in the room. I don't s'pose it made any odds whether he
was preachin' 'bout Mis' Pettigrove or the woman on the Blueb'ry
road,--it was a movin', elevatin' discourse, 'n' that was what we went
there for."

"It wouldn't 'a' ben so elevatin' if he'd told the truth," said
Samantha; "but, there, I ain't goin' to spit no more spite out. Lyddy
Pettigrove's dead, 'n' I hope she's in heaven, and all I can say is,
that she'll be dretful busy up there ondoin' all she done down here. You
say there was a good many out?"

"Yes; we ain't hed so many out for years, so Susanna Rideout says, and
she'd ought to know, for she ain't missed a fun'ral sence she was nine
years old, and she's eighty-one, come Thanksgivin', ef she holds out