Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1897 — “Say So as We Go Along.” [ARTICLE]

“Say So as We Go Along.”

“If folks could have their funerals when they are alive and well and struggling along, what a help it would be!” sighed Aunt Jerusha. She had just returned from a funeral, and Mrs. J. B. Luminls pictures her in Zion’s Herald as wondering how “poor Mis' Brown” would have felt If she could have heard what the minister said. “Poor soul, she never dreamed they set so much by her!” “Mis’ Brown got discouraged,” continued Aunt Jerusha. “Ye see, Deacon Brown, he'd got a way of blaming everything onto her. I don’t suppose the deacon meant it—'twas just his way —but it's awful wearing. When tilings wore out, or broke, he acted just as if Mis' Brown did It herself on purpose; and they all caught ft, like the measles or the whooping-cough. “And the minister a-telllng how the deacon brought bls young wife here when ’twa’n’t nothing but a wilderness, and how patiently alie bore hardship, and wihat a good wife she’d been! Now the minister wouldn’t liave known anything about that if the deacon hadn't told him. Dear! dear! If he'd only told Mis’ Brown herself wliat he thought, I do believe he might have saved the funeral.

“And when the minister said how the children would miss their mother, seemed as though they couldn’t stand it, poor things! “Well, I guess it is true enough; Mis’ Brown was always doing for some of tliein. When they was singing about sweet rest in heaven, I couldn’t help thinking that that was something Mis, Brown would have to get used to, for she never liad none of it here. “She’d liave been awful pleased with the flowers. They was pretty, and no mistake. Ye see. the deacon wa’n’t never willing for her to have a flowerbed. He said ’twas enough prettier sight to see good cabbages a-growlng; but Mis’ Brown always kind of hankered after sweet-smelling things, like roses and such. “What did you say, Levi? 'Most time for supper? Well, land's sakel so it is. I must have got to meditating. I’ve been a-thinking, you needn't tell the minister anything about me. If the pancakes and the pumpkinpies are good, you just say so as we go along. It aint best to keep everything laid up for funerals.” The butter trade is one of the most Important m Ireland, amounting to seven million sterling a year.