procession. There shouldn't be "a hitch" anywhere. There had been a
hitch at her last funeral, but she had been only an assistant there.
Matt Henderson had been struck by lightning at the foot of Squire
Bean's old nooning tree, and certain circumstances combined to make
the funeral one of unusual interest, so much so much so that fat old
Mrs. Potter from Deerwander created a sensation at the cemetery. She
was so anxious to get where she could see everything to the best
advantage that she crowded too near the bier, stepped on the sliding
earth, and pitched into the grave. As she weighed over two hundred
pounds, and was in a position of some disadvantage, it took five men
to extricate her from the dilemma, and the operation made a long and
somewhat awkward break in the religious services. Aunt Hitty always
said of this catastrophe, "If I'd 'a' be'n Mis' Potter, I'd 'a' be'n
so mortified I believe I'd 'a' said, 'I wa'n't plannin' to be buried,
but now I'm in here I declare I'll stop.'


Old Mrs. Butterfield's funeral was not only voted an entire success
by the villagers, but the seal of professional approval was set upon
it by an undertaker from Saco, who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could
make a handsome living in the funeral line anywhere. Providence, who
always assists those who assist themselves, decreed that the niece
Lyddy Ann should not arrive until the aunt was safely buried; so,
there being none to resist her right or grudge her the privilege,
Aunt Hitty, for the first time in her life, rode in the next buggy to
the hearse. Si, in his best suit, a broad weed and weepers, drove
Cyse Higgins' black colt, and Aunt Hitty was dressed in deep
mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's crape veil over her face, and in
her hand a palm-leaf fan tied with a black ribbon. Her comment to
Si, as she went to her virtuous couch that night, was: "It was an