John Mortenson's funeral by Ambrose Beers. The body rested in a fine mahogany coffin
fitted with a plate of glass. All arrangements for the funeral had been so
well attended to that had the deceased known, he would doubtless have approved.
The face as it showed under the glass, was not disagreeable to look upon.
It bore a faint smile, and as the death had been painless,
had not been distorted beyond the repairing power of the undertaker. At two o'clock
in the afternoon, the friends were to assemble to pay their last tribute of
respect to one who had no further need of friends and respect. The surviving
members of the family came severally each few minutes to the casket and wept upon
the placid features beneath the glass. This did them no good. It did
no good to John Morton's but in the presence of death, reason and philosophy
are silent. As the hour of two approached, the friends began to arrive,
and, after offering such condolences to the stricken relatives as the proprieties of
the occasion required, solemnly seated themselves about the room with an augmented consciousness of
their importance in the scheme funereal. Then the Minister came, and in that
overshadowing presence, the lesser lights went into eclipse. His entrance was followed by
that of the widow, whose lamentations filled the room. She approached the casket,
and, after leaning her face against the cold glass for a moment,
was gently led to the seat near her daughter. Mournfully and lo, the
Man of God began his eulogy of the dead, and his doleful voice,
mingled with the sobbing which it was its purpose to stimulate and sustain, rose
and fell, seemed to come and go like the sound of a sullen sea.
The gloomy day grew darker as he spoke. A curtain of cloud underspread
the sky, and a few drops of rain fell audibly. It seemed as
if all nature were weeping for John Mortenson. When the Minister had finished his
eulogy with a prayer, hymn was sung, and the pallbearers took their places
beside the bier. As the last notes of the hymn died away, the
widow ran to the coffin, cast herself upon it, and sobbed hysterically.
Gradually, however, she yielded to dissuasion, becoming more composed, and as
the minister was in the act of leading her away, her eyes sought the
face of the dead beneath the glass, threw up her arms, and with
a shriek, fell backward, insensible. The mourners sprang forward to the coffin,
and friends followed, And as the clock on the mantel solemnly struck three,
all were staring down upon the face of John Mortenson deceased. They turned
away, sick and faint. One man, trying in his terror to escape
the awful sight, stumbled against the coffin so heavily as to knock away one
of its frail supports. The coffin fell to the floor, the glass was
shattered to bits by the concussion. From the opening. Crawled John Mortenson's cat,
which lazily leaped to the floor, sat down, Franquilly wiped its crimson
muzzle with a forepaw, then walked away with dignity from the room. The
End of John Mortenson's Funeral by Ambrose Pearce