s going to be conducted in a decorous manner, if we
didn't get back till the next day. Well, the minister said, in his
regular Sunday school way, 'My little man, let me take hold of the
lines,' and like a darn fool I gave them to him. He slapped the old
horse on the crupper with the lines, and then jerked up, and the old
horse stuck up his off ear, and then the hearse driver told the minister
to pull hard and saw on the bit a little, and the old horse would wake
up. The hearse driver used to drive the old pacer on the track, and he
knew what he wanted. The minister took off his black kid gloves and put
his umbrella down between us, and pulled his hat down tight on his head,
and began to pull and saw on the bit. The old cripple began to move
along sort of sideways, like a hog going to war, and the minister pulled
some more, and the hearse driver, who was right behind, he said, so
you could hear him clear to Waukesha, 'Ye-e-up,' and the old horse kept
going faster, then the minister thought the procession was getting too
quick, and he pulled harder, and yelled 'who-a' and that made the old
horse worse, and I looked through the little window in the buggy top.
behind, and the hearse was about two blocks behind, and the driver was
laughing, and the minister he got pale and said, 'My little man I guess
you better drive,' and I said 'Not much Mary Ann, you wouldn't let me
run this funeral the way I wanted to, and now you can boss it, if you
will let me get out,' but there was a street car ahead and all of a
sudden there was an earthquake, and when I come to there were about six
hundred people pouring water down my neck, and the hearse was hitched to
the fence, and the hearse driver was asking if my leg was broke, and a
policeman was fanning the minister with a plug hat that looked as though
it had been struck by a pile driver, and some people were hauling our
buggy into the gutter, and some men were trying to take old pacer out of
the windows of the street-car, and then I guess I fainted away agin. O,
it was worse than telescoping a train loaded with cattle."

[Illustration: After the earthquake was over 084]

"Well, I swan," said the grocery man, as he put some eggs in a funnel
shaped brown paper for a servant girl. "What did the minister say when
he come to?"

"Say! What could he say? He just yelled 'whoa,' and kept sawing with his
hands, as though he was driving. I heard that the policeman was going to
pull him for fast d