"This man who was to be buried--this one I'm tellin' you of. Do keep still,
an' you'll hear if you don't stop me every minute."
"You said it was a bug," said Peletiah, in loud disapproval, on the further
side.
"Well, so he was," declared Rachel, turning around to him. "Some men are
big-bugs, an' some men are only little mean ones. But this one I'm tellin'
you about was, oh, an awful big one," and she spread her arms with a
generous sweep to indicate his importance.
"Men aren't ever bugs," said Peletiah decidedly.
"Oh, yes, they are."
"No, they ain't," he declared obstinately.
"My mother says we mustn't contradict," put in Ezekiel, with a reproving
glance at him across Rachel's lap.
Peletiah unfolded his hands in extreme distress, but he couldn't say that
men were bugs, so he sat still.
"Anyway, they are in the city, where I lived," said Rachel, "so never mind.
Well, this funeral was just too splendid for anythin'. In the first place
there was----"
"Oh, it's coming," cried Ezekiel, pricking up his ears. "Miss Bedlow's
funeral's coming."
Rachel gave a jump that carried her off from the door-stone and quite a
piece down the box-bordered path. She was hanging over the gate when the
boys came up.
"Where?" she said. "I don't see any."
A small, black, high-topped wagon went by, the old horse at a jog trot, and
after it came a two-seated rockaway, and after that a carryall, and around
the curve in the road appeared more vehicles of the same patterns, tapering
off to a line of chaises and gigs.
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