"Dear Alf,—I take my pen in hand to address these few lines to you to let you know that we are all well, and hope you are endowed with the same and many like blessings. Nothin' unusual is goin' on here right now. It is as quiet as the day after camp-meetin'. Dick's funeral was preached yesterday. The weather was tiptop, and nothin' was lackin' to make it a plumb success. Hettie got us out of bed before a single streak of day had appeared. We put on our clothes by pine-knots. The preacher she sent away off for, because she was bound to git some'n extra, was installed at the hotel. He is a wheel-hoss; he dressed as fine as a fiddle, with a plug-hat and dashboard shoes, and had a long jimswinger coat that come to his knees. The paper said he was the silver-tongued orator of the entire Cherokee pulpit, and printed his picture, and said he'd been paid a handsome figure by one of our wealthiest citizens to take part in the memorable occasion. I cut the artickle out to send to you, but forgot an' lit my pipe with it. I'll try to git another, but they are hard to find, as all hands seem to be keepin' 'em for future generations to look at. I seed ten men all readin' one at the same time in a gang at the sawmill t'other day. They seemed to consider it funny, but I didn't. I don't see how a thing as solemn as that affair was could be funny.

"We et our breakfast by candle-light, and then set around and had nothin' to do till startin'-time. We went in the two-seated spring-wagon. I was the only one in our layout not draped from head to foot in black. I couldn't see the women's faces, and as they didn't say a word I couldn't estimate the extend of their grief. I reckon you can guess, anyway. You know 'em. You never saw sech a stream o' folks in all yore born days. You'd 'a' thought it was a public hangin', and every livin' soul had to take a special peep at us as we driv along. As well as I could make out through her veil, Hettie seemed to like bein' so conspicuous, for she axed me to drive slow an' go through the main street, which ain't the nighest way to the church. When we got thar the house was packed as tight as dry apples in a cider-press. But the front bench was all our'n. Nobody dared take it, although more'n half of it was empty, an' folks was settin' in the windows. I had trouble with Hettie, for she made me throw my chaw o' tobacco away, and I found I was settin' right over a wide crack in the floor, too. I wouldn't 'a' damaged a thing, an' could 'a' done it without bein' seed.

"Then I made her as mad as Old Nick by a little mistake of mine. While I was hitchin' up the wagon Old Bay bit a whoppin' big gap out'n my straw hat, and it was so comical-lookin' that Ma told me not to wear it. That was easy enough to say, but I didn't want to go bareheaded, so I begun to look about the house for some'n to put on, and hid away amongst Het's knickknacks I found a hat that used to belong to Dick. It was jest my size, and so I put it on an' thought no more about it till we was all settin' in church. It was on my lap, and all at once I seed Hettie lift up her veil an' squint at it; then she heaved a big groan and snatched it and put it out o' sight. She'd have blessed me out on the spot, I reckon, if the singers hadn't set in. I was a sight goin' home without a thing on my head, but she wouldn't listen to reason, an' kept it stuffed all in a wad under her arm. She said I had no feelin' or I wouldn't have done sech an outrageous thing.

"The preacher was all right, but he'd bit off more than he could chaw. It seems from report that he went around Chester to find out statements that he could work in about Dick that would sound nice and suitable; but for some reason or other—maybe because everybody was so excited, and maybe because they was naturally backward before sech a shinin' light—but, as I say, he run short on information. When he come to that part of his talk he looked actually teased. He floundered about considerable, an' drunk a lot o' water, but he done the best he could. He said Dick was a devoted husband and father, and got red when he corrected the last part, and said a Divine Providence had seed fit to take 'im away purty early in the game, and that the poor fellow hadn't really had a chance to show what was in him. Looked like he was determined to say some'n nice about Dick, so he gave a few backhanded licks at the Republican party and the nigger-lovers of the North, an' wound up by sayin' that the late lamented had been a stanch Democrat an' worked at the poles as hard to overthrow graftin' and Yankee oppression as any man in the fair Southland. He got through somehow, but, betwixt me 'n you, Alf, I don't think Hettie thought she got her full money's worth, for she was countin' on a wonderful display of poetry and highfalutin' things that would be remembered an' placed to her credit for a long time afterwards. He got his foot in it several times. Once I heard Hettie sniff mighty nigh loud enough for him to hear it. It was when he said life wasn't what it was cracked up to be, nohow, and he didn't doubt that Dick was a sight better off where he was at than here in this earthly wrangle. I thought to myself, I wonder what Alf would say in his far-off retreat to a statement of that sort.

"The marble monument looks all right in Welborne's new graveyard, an' he has a right to be proud of his enterprise. The ground is bein' mapped off in great shape. He's had grass sowed all over it and laid out avenues and sidewalks, and thar's some talk of a fountain.

"That Dixie Hart's a corker. She's not mealy-mouthed about anything. The day before the funeral Hettie was talkin' to her at the cow-lot, and axed Dixie if she was goin' to take it in. Dixie quit milchin', and stood up straight and said: 'No, I've got better sense, and you ought to be ashamed of yoreself. You've got a good husband, and you don't appreciate him nigh enough.'

"I thought it was funny that Het didn't fly off the handle, but she stood and tuck it, and seemed to be set back a peg or two. Me 'n her went to the house together, an' I looked for her to rail out on me, anyway, but she set on the porch like she had a lot to think about till bed-time. I made up my mind then that Het jest loves to do things that other folks don't approve of, an' that Dixie had set 'er to wonderin' if she hadn't gone a little bit too far.

"But the old gal is all right. She has tuck a new turn, as I wrote you in my last. She keeps boarders in the two spare rooms mighty nigh all the time, and she is figurin' expenses purty close. Sometimes it is a rovin' peddler at day-rates or a fruit-tree agent by the week. I can't say I like it overly much—though thar is somebody to talk to at odd times when they are through work—for she don't seem to feed quite as well when she's bein' paid as before money begun to come in. She seems to want to lay up scads for some reason or other; maybe it is to try to git back the cash she has spent on her odd notion. I don't know, an' I ain't sure she does herself, but she's as close as the bark on a tree. Jim says she's runnin' a separate account at the store, an' makes 'im figure everything she gets at bare cost in market—freight not included. I heard her tellin' a lightnin'-rod peddler that that was where she could cut under the Chester House, which didn't have no store nor credit to speak of.

"Who do you think was here last week? Why, Ben Warren, Hettie's bach' uncle. He stayed all night, an' occupied yore room. He says he's got two thousand acres in his plantation over the mountain, and the finest residence in the State—keeps a dozen hosses an' all the old niggers that his daddy used to own. He's thirty-five, an' still on the turf, but he told us he was at last engaged to a Baltimore lady that he had been settin up to for lo these many years. He's goin' to have us all spend a week over thar before long. He thinks a lot of Het, an' wants her to fix up his house for the bride. Het's lookin' forward to it. He couldn't stay over for the funeral, but he said she was showin' by her act that women was not forgetful of the past, and that it made him feel more secure in the venture he was about to make. He'd been inclined to doubt females to some extent, he said, and he was goin' to let Het's conduct stand before him always as a proof of how deep a woman's affections can be when they are tested.

"Now, take care of yourself, Alf, and come on home. These cool, green mountains are good enough for any man, an' you know what is said about a rollin' stone. So long. I sign myself, with my best respects,

"Yours truly,
"Jason Wrinkle.

"P. S.—The same old crowd of jolly loafers make the store headquarters, and they are, if anything, worse 'n when you was the king-bee o' the bunch. They git off a fresh joke on somebody every day. I got off one on Jim that he didn't like a bit. Jim is still holdin' on to old man Hardcastle's gal like grim death, an' in order to cut a special dash he's got to sendin' his things to the steam laundry at Carlton. T'other day at the post-office the nigger that delivers for the Express Company, an' can't read, showed me Jim's package of socks, drawers, shirts, an' the like, that had just come, an' axed me who it was for. With as straight a face as if I was lookin' a corpse in the eyes, I p'inted out Hardcastle's house an' tol' 'im to take it thar. Then I writ with a pencil on the kiver these words, 'Please restore missin' buttons and stitch up holes.' Then what did I do but hike back to the store an' set an' wait. Miss Julia sent the stuff a-whizzin' to Jim by a nigger woman that works for her folks. The things was all tousled up in a big basket, an' she fetched along a note that made Jim turn as white as a cake o' tallow. He left me in charge an' run over an' explained matters to the best of his ability, but it's the talk of the town, an' not a soul has suspicioned me. If you don't want to git knocked flat you'd better not mention a steam laundry in Jim's presence.

"J. W."