"Friend of yourn?"

"Yes," I said with a sigh.

"He's pretty ripe, ain't he!"

Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of minutes, each being busy
with his own thoughts; then Thompson said, in a low, awed voice,

"Sometimes it's uncertain whether they're really gone or not,--seem gone,
you know--body warm, joints limber--and so, although you think they're
gone, you don't really know. I've had cases in my car. It's perfectly
awful, becuz you don't know what minute they'll rise up and look at you!"
Then, after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow toward the box,
--"But he ain't in no trance! No, sir, I go bail for him!"

We sat some time, in meditative silence, listening to the wind and the
roar of the train; then Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling,

"Well-a-well, we've all got to go, they ain't no getting around it. Man
that is born of woman is of few days and far between, as Scriptur' says.
Yes, you look at it any way you want to, it's awful solemn and cur'us:
they ain't nobody can get around it; all's got to go--just everybody, as
you may say. One day you're hearty and strong"--here he scrambled to his
feet and broke a pane and stretched his nose out at it a moment or two,
then sat down again while I struggled up and thrust my nose out at the
same place, and this we kept on doing every now and then--"and next day
he's cut down like the grass, and the places which knowed him then knows
him no more forever, as Scriptur' says. Yes'ndeedy, it's awful solemn