somebody in the course o’ trade.  Then there was another reason, John.  No. 9’s a long way the handiest lot in the simitery, and the likeliest for situation.  It lays right on top of a knoll in the dead center of the buryin’ ground; and you can see Millport from there, and Tracy’s, and Hopper Mount, and a raft o’ farms, and so on.  There ain’t no better outlook from a buryin’-plot in the state.  Si Higgins says so, and I reckon he ought to know.  Well, and that ain’t all.  ’Course Shorb had to take No. 8; wa’n’t no help for ’t.  Now, No. 8 jines onto No. 9, but it’s on the slope of the hill, and every time it rains it ’ll soak right down onto the Shorbs.  Si Higgins says ’t when the deacon’s time comes, he better take out fire and marine insurance both on his remains.”

Here there was the sound of a low, placid, duplicate chuckle of appreciation and satisfaction.

“Now, John, here’s a little rough draft of the ground that I’ve made on a piece of paper.  Up here in the left-hand corner we’ve bunched the departed; took them from the old graveyard and stowed them one alongside o’ t’other, on a first-come-first-served plan, no partialities, with Gran’ther Jones for a starter, on’y because it happened so, and windin’ up indiscriminate with Seth’s twins.  A little crowded towards the end of the lay-out, maybe, but we reckoned ’twa’n’t best to scatter the twins.  Well, next comes the livin’.  Here, where it’s marked A, we’re goin’ to put Mariar and her family, when they’re called; B, that’s for Brother Hosea and hisn; C, Calvin and tribe.  What’s left is these two lots here—­just the gem of the whole patch for general style and outlook; they’re for me and my folks, and you and yourn.  Which of them would you rather be buried in?”

“I swan, you’ve took me mighty unexpected, William!  It sort of started the shivers.  Fact is, I was thinkin’ so busy about makin’ things comfortable for the others, I hadn’t thought about being buried myself.”

“Life’s on’y a fleetin’ show, John, as the sayin’ is.  We’ve all got to go, sooner or later.  To go with a clean record’s the main thing.  Fact is, it’s the on’y thing worth strivin’ for, John.”

“Yes, that’s so, William, that’s so; there ain’t no getting around it.  Which of these lots would you recommend?”

“Well, it depends, John.  Are you particular about outlook?”

“I don’t say I am, William, I don’t say I ain’t.  Reely, I don’t know.  But mainly, I reckon, I’d set store by a south exposure.”

“That’s easy fixed, John.  They’re both south exposure.  They take the sun, and the Shorbs get the shade.”

“How about site, William?”

“D’s a sandy sile, E’s mostly loom.”

“You may gimme E, then; William; a sandy sile caves in, more or less, and costs for repairs.”

“All right, set your name down here, John, under E. Now, if you don’t mind payin’ me your share of the fourteen dollars, John, while we’re on the business, everything’s fixed.”