of death in a neighboring town. The butcher had gone by, and I was
going; but Deacon Pitts stood there, dramatically intent upon his
mournful morsel. I judged that he was pondering on the possibility of
attending the funeral without the waste of too much precious time now
due the crops. Suddenly, as he turned back toward the house, bearing a
pan of liver, his pondering eye caught sight of his aged wife toiling
across the fields, laden with pennyroyal. He set the pan down
hastily--yea, even before the advancing cat!--and made a trumpet of his
hands.

"Sarah!" he called piercingly. "Sarah! Mr. Amasa Blake's passed away!
Died yesterday!"

I do not know whether he was present at that funeral, but it would be
strange if he were not; for time and tide both served him, and he was
always on the spot. Indeed, one day he reached a house of mourning in
such season that he found the rooms quite empty, and was forced to wait
until the bereaved family should assemble. There they sat, he and his
wife, a portentous couple in their dead black and anticipatory gloom,
until even their patience had well-nigh fled. And then an arriving
mourner overheard the deacon, as he bent forward and challenged his
wife in a suspicious and discouraged whisper:--

"Say, Sarah, ye don't s'pose it's all goin' to fush out, do ye?"

They had their funeral.

To the childish memory, so many of the yards are redolent now of wonder
and a strange, sweet fragrance of the fancy not to be described! One,
where lived a notable cook, had, in a quiet corner, a little grove of