196 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



us sacred from companionship with beasts and the defilement of heedless feet, has 

 tottered till it overhangs the street, and only advertises the presence of our dismal 

 resting-place and invites yet more derision to it. And now we cannot hide our 

 poverty and tatters in the friendly woods, for the city has stretched its withering 

 arms abroad and taken us in, and all that remains of the cheer of our old home is 

 the cluster of lugubrious forest trees that stand, bored and weary of a city life, with 

 their feet in our coffins, looking into the hazy distance and wishing they were there. 

 I tell you it is disgraceful ! 



"You begin to comprehend — you begin to see how it is. While our descendants 

 are living sumptuously on our money, right around us in the city, we have to fight 

 hard to keep skull and bones together. Bless you, there isn't a grave in our 

 cemetery that doesn't leak — not one. Every time it rains in the night we have to 

 climb out and roost in the trees — and sometimes we are wakened suddenly by the 

 chilly water trickling down the back of our necks. Then I tell you there is a 

 general heaving up of old graves and kicking over of old monuments, and scamp- 

 ering of old skeletons for the trees ! Bless me, if you had gone along there some 

 such nights after twelve you might have seen as many as fifteen of us roosting on 

 one limb, with our joints rattling drearily and the wind wheezing through our ribs ! 

 Many a time we have perched there for three or four dreary hours, and then come 

 down, stiff and chilled through and drowsy, and borrowed each other's skulls to 

 bale out our graves with — if you will glance up in my mouth, now as I tilt my head 

 back, you can see that my head-piece is half full of old dry sediment — how top- 

 heavy and stupid it makes me sometimes ! Yes, sir, many a time if you had 

 happened to come along just before the dawn you'd have caught us baling out the 

 graves and hanging our shrouds on the fence to dry. Why, I had an elegant shroud 

 stolen from there one morning — think a party by the name of Smith took it, that 

 resides in a plebeian graveyard over yonder — I think so because the first time I ever 

 saw him he hadn't anything on but a check-shirt, and the last time I saw him, 

 which was at a social gathering in the new cemetery, he was the best dressed corpse 

 in the company — and it is a significant fact that he left when he saw me; and 

 presently an old woman from here missed her coffin — she generally took it with her 

 when she went anywhere, because she was liable to take cold and bring on the 



