excited, and tried to join in, for, mind you, he was pretty proud of his
abilities in the singing line; but the first time he opened his mouth and
was just going to spread himself his breath took a walk.
“I never see a man snuffed out so sudden. Ah, it was a great loss–a,
powerful loss to this poor little one-horse town. Well, well, well, I
hain’t got time to be palavering along here–got to nail on the lid and
mosey along with him; and if you’ll just give me a lift we’ll skeet him
into the hearse and meander along. Relations bound to have it so–don’t
pay no attention to dying injunctions, minute a corpse’s gone; but, if I
had my way, if I didn’t respect his last wishes and tow him behind the
hearse I’ll be cuss’d. I consider that whatever a corpse wants done for
his comfort is little enough matter, and a man hain’t got no right to
deceive him or take advantage of him; and whatever a corpse trusts me to
do I’m a-going to do, you know, even if it’s to stuff him and paint him
yaller and keep him for a keepsake–you hear me!”
He cracked his whip and went lumbering away with his ancient ruin of a
hearse, and I continued my walk with a valuable lesson learned–that a
healthy and wholesome cheerfulness is not necessarily impossible to any
occupation. The lesson is likely to be lasting, for it will take many
months to obliterate the memory of the remarks and circumstances that
impressed it.
CONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDS
Against all chambermaids, of whatsoever age or nationality, I launch the
curse of bachelordom! Because:
They always put the pillows at the opposite end of the bed from the gas-
burner, so that while you read and smoke before sleeping (as is the
ancient and honored custom of bachelors), you have to hold your book
aloft, in an uncomfortable position, to keep the light from dazzling your
eyes.
When they find the pillows removed to the other end of the bed in the
morning, they receive not the suggestion in a friendly spirit; but,
glorying in their absolute sovereignty, and unpitying your helplessness,
they make the bed just as it was originally, and gloat in secret over the
pang their tyranny will cause you.
Always after that, when they find you have transposed the pillows, they
undo your work, and thus defy and seek to embitter the life that God has
given you.
If they cannot get the light in an inconvenient position any other way,
they move the bed.
If you pull your trunk out six inches from the wall, so that the lid will
stay up when you open it, they always shove that trunk back again. They
do it on purpose.
If you want the spittoon in a certain spot, where it will be handy, they
don’t, and so they move it.
They always put your other boots into inaccessible places. They chiefly
enjoy depositing them as far under the bed as the wall will permit. It
is because this compels you to get down in an undignified attitude and
make wild sweeps for them in the dark with the bootjack, and swear.
They always put the matchbox in some other place. They hunt up a new
place for it every day, and put up a bottle, or other perishable glass
thing, where the box stood before. This is to cause you to break that
glass thing, groping in the dark, and get yourself into trouble.
They are for ever and ever moving the furniture. When you come in in the
night you can calculate on finding the bureau where the wardrobe was in
the morning. And when you go out in the morning, if you leave the slop-
bucket by the door and rocking-chair by the window, when you come in at
midnight or thereabout, you will fall over that rocking-chair, and you
will proceed toward the window and sit down in that slop-tub. This will
disgust you. They like that.
No matter where you put anything, they are not going to let it stay
there. They will take it and move it the first chance they get. It is