I donno,' s'she. 'I'd like to go an' I'd like to ride to the
graveyard. I've watched the funerals through the poorhouse fence. An'
I'd kind o' like to be one o' the followers, for once--all lookin'
friendly an' together so, in a line.'

"'Go with me then, child,' I says. An' she done so.

"Bein' summer, the funeral flowers was perfectly beautiful. They was a
rill hothouse box from the Proudfits; an' a anchor an' two crosses an' a
red geranium lantern; an' a fruit piece made o' straw flowers from the
other merchants; an' seven pillows, good-sized, an' with all different
wordin', an' so on. The mound at the side o' the grave was piled
knee-high, an' Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, I heard, said it seemed like
Sum was less dead than almost anybody 't'd died in Friendship, bein' the
grave kind o' spoke up, friendly, when you see the flowers. She went
home rill cheerful from the funeral an' was able to help get the supper
for the out-o'-town relations, a thing no widow ever thinks of, anyway
till the next day--though Sum was her second husband, so it was a little
different than most.

"Well, a few of us waited 'round the cemetery afterwards to fix the
flowers on the top o' the sod, an' Elspie, she waited with me--fussin'
quiet with one thing an' another. Eb, he waited too, standin' 'round.
An' when it come time for us women to lay the set pieces on, I see
Elspie an' Eb walkin' off toward the top o' the cemetery hill. It's a
pretty view from there, lookin' down the slope toward the Old Part,
where nobody remembered much who was buried, an' it's a rill popular
walk. I liked seein' 'em go 'long together--some way, lookin' at 'em,
Elspie so pretty an' Eb so kind o' gentle, you could 'a' thought they
_was_ rill folks, her sane an' him with a spine. I slipped off an' left
'em, the cemetery bein' so near my house, an' Eb walked home with her.
'Poor things,' I thought, 'if he _does_ go back to peddlin' an' she
_has_ to go to the Alice County poorhouse, I'll give 'em this funeral
afternoon for a bright spot, anyhow.'

"But I'd just about decided that Elspie wa'n't to go to Alice County. I
hadn't looked the _i_-dee in the face an' thought about it, very
financial. But I ain't sure you get your best lights when you do that.
I'd just sort o' decided on it out o' pure shame for the shabby trick o'
_not_ doin' so. I hadn't said anything about it to Timothy or Silas or
any o' the rest, because I didn't hev the strength to go through the
arg