feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say
sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I
b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's
tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was
carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders,
it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like
her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to
her and tryin' not to cry."

Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin,
his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the
roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and
whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down,
and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile
on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to
himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels
with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not
half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even
miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going
there pretty soon; next summer perhaps."



Part II.


For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void
was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic
silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east
bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She