there isn't a compliment on it. It used to have

'GONE TO HIS JUST REWARD'

on it, and I was proud when I first saw it, but by and by I noticed that

whenever an old friend of mine came along he would hook his chin on the

railing and pull a 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 monument. Yonder goes half

a dozen of the Jarvises now, with the family monument along. And

Smithers and some hired specters went by with his awhile ago. Hello,

Higgins, good-by, 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 generally 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 Columbus

Jones--shroud cost four hundred dollars--entire trousseau, including

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

enormous 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

246

Sketches New and Old