human
Yes, well, I reckon he was at one time as poplar an ondertaker ez I knew.
gpt
But was he--this yer ondertaker--a Christian--hed he jined the church?
human
Well, I don't know ez you might call him a purfessin' Christian; but he hed--yes, he hed conviction. I think Dr. Wylie hed him under conviction. Et least that was the way I got it from HIM.
gpt
But why was he poplar ez an ondertaker?
human
Well, he was kinder poplar with widders and widderers--sorter soothen 'em a kinder, keerless way; slung 'em suthin' here and there, sometimes outer the Book, sometimes outer hisself, ez a man of experience as hed hed sorror. Hed, they say (VERY CAUTIOUSLY), lost three wives hisself, and five children by this yer new disease--dipthery--out in Wisconsin. I don't know the facts, but that's what's got round.
gpt
But how did he lose his poplarity?
human
Well, that's the question. You see he interduced some things into ondertaking that waz new. He hed, for instance, a way, as he called it, of manniperlating the features of the deceased.
gpt
How manniperlating?
human
Look yer, did ye ever notiss how, generally speakin', onhandsome a corpse is?
gpt
Why there was Mary Peebles, ez was daughter of my wife's bosom friend--a mighty pooty girl and a professing Christian--died of scarlet fever. Well, that gal--I was one of the mourners, being my wife's friend--well, that gal, though I hedn't, perhaps, oughter say--lying in that casket, fetched all the way from some A1 establishment in Chicago, filled with flowers and furbelows--didn't really seem to be of much account. Well, although my wife's friend, and me a mourner--well, now, I was--disappointed and discouraged.
human
Sho! now!
gpt
Yes, SIR! Well, you see, this yer ondertaker, this Wilkins, hed a way of correctin' all thet. And just by manniperlation. He worked over the face of the deceased ontil he perduced what the survivin' relatives called a look of resignation,--you know, a sort of smile, like. When he wanted to put in any extrys, he perduced what he called--hevin' reglar charges for this kind of work--a Christian's hope.
human
I want to know.
gpt
Yes. Well, I admit, at times it was a little startlin'. And I've allers said (a little confidentially) that I had my doubts of its being Scriptoorl, or sacred, we being, ez you know, worms of the yearth; and I relieved my mind to our pastor, but he didn't feel like interferin', ez long ez it was confined to church membership. But the other day, when Cy Dunham died--you disremember Cy Dunham?