A CURIOUS DREAM. 199 



long face and read along down till he came to that, and then he would chuckle to 

 himself and walk off, looking satisfied and comfortable. So I scratched it off to 

 get rid of those fools. But a dead man always takes a deal of pride in his monu- 

 ment. Yonder goes half-a-dozen of the Jarvises, now, with the family monument 

 along. And Smithers and some hired spectres went by with his a while ago. 

 Hello, Higgins, good-bye, old friend! That's Meredith Higgins — died in '44 — 

 belongs to our set in the cemetery — fine old family — great-grandmother was an 

 Injun — I am on the most familiar terms with him — he didn't hear me was the reason 

 he didn't answer me. And I am sorry, too, because I would have liked to introduce 

 you. You would admire him. He is the most disjointed, sway-backed, and gen- 

 ei;ally distorted old skeleton you ever saw, but he is full of fun. When he laughs 

 it. sounds like rasping two stones together, and he always starts it off with a cheery 

 screech like raking a nail across a window-pane. Hey, Jones ! That is old 

 Cplumbus Jones — shroud cost four hundred dollars — entire trousseau, including 

 monument, twenty-seven hundred. This was in the Spring of '26. It was enor- 

 mous style for those days. Dead people came all the way from the Alleghanies to 

 see his things — the party that occupied the grave next to mine remembers it well. 

 Now do you see that individual going along with a piece of a head-board under 

 his arm, one leg-bone below his knee gone, and not a thing in the world on 1 

 That is Barstow Dalhousie, and next X.Q Columbus Jones he was the most sump- 

 tuously outfitted person that ever entered our cemetery. We are all leaving. We 

 cannot tolerate the treatment we are receiving at the hands of our descendants. 

 They open new cemeteries, but they leave us to our ignoininy. They mend the 

 streets, but they never mend anything that is about us or belongs to us. Look at 

 that coffin of mine — yet I tell you in its day it was a piece of furniture that would 

 have attracted attention in any drawing-room in this city. You may have it if you 

 want it — I can't afford to repair it. Put a new bottom in her, and part of a new 

 top, and a bit of fresh lining along the left sid«, and you'll find her about as com- 

 fortable as any receptacle of her species you ever tried. No thanks — no, don't 

 mention it — you have been civil to me, and I would give you all the property I 

 have got before I would seem ungrateful. Now this winding-sheet is a kind of a 

 sweet thing in its way, if you would like to . No.? Well, just as you say, but 



