passed it around the room, winking expansively at each individual in
turn, by way of silent encouragement and support.

Grandma Bartlett, observing the generally tearless aspect of the
community, conscientiously attempted to weep, but being entirely out of
tears, at her time of life, she only succeeded in screwing her face up
into what, in earlier years, might have appeared as a lachrymose
expression, but now took the shape of a fixed and ogreish grin.

The infant Sophronia was seated on a bench of an exceedingly temporary
nature, between Grandma Keeler and Aunt Lobelia, both persons of weight,
and it so chanced, or, rather, it followed as a matter of course, an
equal pressure being applied to both sides, that the board sustaining the
three, broke directly under that diminutive victim of fate, awaking her
thereby from feverish slumber; and whether the infant Sophronia had an
immortal soul or not, no one there present could doubt that she possessed
an uncommon pair of lungs.

The little room where we sat was hot and overcrowded, and the thought was
running in my mind continually. "Poor, restless Wallencampers! and how
happy Mr. 'Lihu is not to have any connection with his funeral."

When the procession was about to start for the burying-ground, the
request was made to me that I would blow the horn, even as the bell is
usually tolled on such occasions, for it would seem inappropriate for one
of the Wallencampers to do so, they all having been related to the
deceased.

At such a time, I could not refuse, though the emotions with which I
crossed over to the school-house to perform this grim duty, were of a
nature best known to, and appreciated by, myself. My terror of the
Wallencamp horn had waxed daily. I believed that there was nothing in the
whole world of inanimate things on which I would not sooner have
attempted to sound a funeral dirge. Though capable of some variety of
expression, it had never yet been seduced into emitting any sound in the
least indicative of the designs struggling in the mind of the blower. The
human was paralyzed before it--a mere machine to blow into it and let
come what would. And, now, for the first time in my experience, it took
on a jubilant strain. I blew slowly; I blew solemnly. Still, it sounded
like nothing else than a glad, exultant rallying-call.

I paused, horrified. From the rear of the moving procession, Aunt Patty,
with a yell and a frantic gesture of the hands, entreated me t