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his stone;
Mary herself in realms of fadeless glory
Has put a robe of fadeless glory on.
This monumental urn is not designed
To tell of beauties withering in the tomb,
Her brightest charms were centered in her mind
Which still prevail and will forever bloom.
Her conscious soul
Allied to angels hails the glorious change,
And joins the blest societies above
In all the freshness of immortal love.
There is a world of bliss hereafter, else
Why are the bad above, the good beneath
The green grass of the grave?"

This whole performance was so irresistibly comical that the unfortunate
young man had such a sudden fit of strangling that two of the most
muscular ghosts smote him on the back until he was in danger of having
his spinal column dislocated, while the beauteous Mary sat down with an
air of pride, which was quite natural when one considered the difficulty
under which she labored. As she sat down she seemed to double up like a
jackknife or a two-foot rule. There were murmurs of commiseration over
the length of this epitaph, and the reporter thought to himself that it
was rather a queer idea to contrast the robes of fadeless glory with the
few rotting remnants of her cerements.

Scarcely had she taken her seat when a woman stood up, and as if she
feared she would not get a chance to recite her effusion, she began and
rattled it off in one string without punctuation, though to be sure this
seemed to be a common fault with these ladies. She said:

"Mary Jane Smith, died Feb. 1st, 1752, age 43. Affliction sore long time
she bore, Physician's art was vain, Till God did please that death
should seize And ease me of my pain. Farewell my husband and my
children, Farewell to all on earth, I hope to meet you all in heaven,
Where parting is no more."

Mrs. Smith's ghost sat down in the consciousness of having taken time by
the forelock and that now she was sure that no one could defraud her of
her chance to recite the atrocity which she seemed to think so worthy of
admiration. The master of ceremonies was evidently put out to think that
anyone should take liberties with his program, so that he grew rattled
a little and instead of continuing to call upon the rest of the ladies
he hurriedly said:

"If Mr. John Beers is here will he please rise and tell us what they put
on his gravestone?"

A very decrepit old man stood up after several trials to do so and in a
weak and quavering voice repeated:

"John Beers, a Revolutionary pensioner, died April 22, aged 45. He fell
as falls the oak with years, Which storms have beat upon, Upon his grave
we shed our tears, To heaven we hope he's gone."

As this feeble old man sat down it seemed to the young man that it was a
little hard on the old man's memory that they had left his ultimate
destination in doubt. Still, as the old man made no objection no one
else had any right to complain. The old man received quite an ovation.
As he subsided the master of ceremonies said:

"Is Mr. Peleg Eddy here? I am sorry to say that I have never had the
pleasure of meeting Mr. Eddy, so I cannot tell which one of our invited
guests he is."

He looked around three or four times, and again asked for the gentleman
from out of town. Finally a gloomy-looking little man stood up with a
very bad grace. He could not have been more than five feet tall in life
and was now considerably less. He repeated:

"Peleg Eddy and his wife,
They sat out in early life.
They turned about each other's hearts,
But God doth call and they must part.
'Tis hard to part and leave behind
A tender wife and child so kind.
With anxious care she watched his bed,
And kept cold towels on his head,
But all in vain, for God doth send
And call away her bosom friend.
To his dear mother standing by,
Saying, 'Dear mother, prepare to die,
The heavens in glory is full in view,'
He soon did bid this world a long adieu.
A few hours after his senses fled,
And now he sleeps among the dead;
Sleep on, sleep on, and take thy rest,
God called thee home we all thought best."

As this unfortunate man, whose family had laid this heavy load on him,
sat down there were murmurs of condolence all around, and the newspaper
man asked if he would permit him to ask where he was buried, whereupon
he glared in the most ferocious manner at the interloper, while his bony
fists clenched ominously:

"You may ask if you like, but I shall not answer. Do you think it is not
enough to have to lie under that stuff without letting all the
rubberneckers in the country know where it is that they may come and
make fun of it?"

The young man disclaimed any such intention, and said that he regretted
having asked, and apologized so abjectly that at last the poor ghost
unbent a little and volunteered the information that the widow who had
been such a ministering angel with her cold towels had wedded again in
just one year, "and his name is Whipple, and I am just laying for him.
If ever I do find him I am going to pulverize him. He wrote that epitaph
and my wife thought it such a wonderful poetic effusion that she lost
her heart, and common sense. I wait year after year in hopes of meeting
him. Have you any idea how many centuries it will take to rub out all
that?"

The newspaper man told the unhappy ghost that there was no punishment
too great for a man guilty of such a pack of doggerel, and he meant it,
and made another mental note that he should leave strict orders that no
epitaph should be put over his resting place when he should be no more.
The master of ceremonies now stood up and announced:

"I have the honor to announce that Sergeant Benjamin Davis, who was in
the Civil War in the Seventh Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers is
here. He participated in sixteen battles and served four years. He will
now speak."

The ghost of the young man stood up, and he wore the shreds of his
uniform, and so was the only ghost who did not wear what was left of his
shroud. He said modestly:

"Ben. F. Davis, a sergeant in the Seventh Connecticut Volunteers.
Participated in sixteen battles with conspicuous bravery and contracted
chronic-"

Here he was suddenly interrupted by the leader of society, who said with
great concern:

"Sir, do not forget that there are ladies present."

"Who is this galoot? By what right do you assume, sir, that I was about
to insult these ladies? It is a good job for you that there are ladies
present. I would use you for a curry comb otherwise. Now, then, just you
close the doors of your face, as Job says. I contracted chronic
rheumatism and died of rheumatism of the heart. Have you any objections
to make to that?"

"No, not at all, only it was probably heart failure, instead of what you
say. It is not fashionable to have rheumatism of the heart now, for it
is dignified as heart failure. We have heart failure, and appendicitis,
and laryngitis-"

"Folks die of them just the same, don't they?"

"Yes: but it sounds so much more refined."

The soldier boy looked at the man whose refinements were so much greater
than the occasion requ
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