Cephas had one to himself, and his wife another one, and two old maids,
sisters of Cephas'ses who always made a point of attendin' funerals,
they each one of 'em had one. S. Annie and her children, of course, had
the first one, and then the minister had one, and one of the trustees in
the neighborhood had another; so we lengthened out into quite a crowd,
all a-follerin' the shiny hearse, and the casket all covered with showy
plated nails. I thought of it in jest that way, for Wellington, I knew,
the real Wellington, wuzn't there. No, he wuz fur away--as fur as the
Real is from the Unreal. Wall, we filed into the Loontown meetin'-house
in pretty good shape. The same meetin'-house I had been sent to
reconoiter. But Cephas hadn't no black handkerchief, and he looked
worried about it. He had shed tears a-tellin' me about it, what a
oversight it wuz, while I wuz a fixin' on his mournin' weed. He took it
into his head to have a deeper weed at the last minute, so I fixed it
on. He had the weed come up to the top of his hat and lap over. I never
see so tall a weed. But it suited Cephas; he said "he thought it showed
deep respect."

"Wall," sez I, "it is a deep weed, anyway--the deepest I ever see." And
he said as I wuz a sewin' it on, he a-holdin' his hat for me, "that
Wellington deserved it; he deserved it all."

But, as I say, he shed tears to think that his handkerchief wuzn't
black-bordered. He said "it wuz a fearful oversight; it would probably
make talk."

"But," I sez, "mebby it won't be noticed."

[Illustration: "AS A PROCESSION WE WUZ MIDDLIN' LONG, BUT RUTHER
THIN."]