think I am a wreck, you
ought to see the minister. They had to carry him home in installments,
the way they buy sewing machines. I am all right; but they have got to
stop him up with oakum and tar, before he will hold water again!"

"Good gracious, you have not had a fight with the minister, have you?
Well, I have said all the time, and I stick to it, that you would commit
a crime yet, and go to state prison. What was the fuss about?" and the
grocery man laid the hatchet out of the boy's reach for fear he would
get excited and kill him.

"O, I want no fuss, it was in the way of business. You see the livery
man that I was working for promoted me. He let me drive a horse to haul
sawdust for bedding, first, and when he found I was real careful he let
me drive an express wagon to haul trunks. Day before yesterday, I think
it was--yes, I was in bed all day yesterday--day before yesterday
there was a funeral, and our stable furnished the outfit. It was only a
common, eleven dollar funeral, so they let me go to drive the horse for
the minister--you know, the buggy that goes ahead of the hearse. They
gave me an old horse that is thirty years old, that has not been off of
a walk since nine years ago, and they told me to give him a loose rein,
and he would go along all right. It's the same old horse that used to
pace so fast on the avenue, years ago, but I didn't know it. Well,
I wan't to blame. I just let him walk along as though he was hauling
sawdust, and gave him a loose rein. When we got off of the pavement, the
fellow that drives the hearse, he was in a hurry, 'cause his folks was
going to have ducks for dinner, and he wanted to get back, so he kept
driving along side of my buggy, and telling me to hurry up. I wouldn't
do it, 'cause the livery man told me to walk the horse. Then the
minister, he got nervous, and said he didn't know as there was any use
of going so slow, because he wanted to get back in time to get his lunch
and go to a minister's meeting in the afternoon, but I told him we would
all get to the cemetery soon enough if we took it cool, and as for me
I wasn't in no sweat. Then one of the drivers that was driving the
mourners, he came up and said he had to get back in time to run a
wedding down to the one o'clock train, and for me to pull out a little.
I have seen enough of disobeying orders, and I told him a funeral in the
hand was worth two weddings in the bush, and as far as I was concerned,
this funeral wa