Those Times and These by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

THEY were on their way back from Father Minor's funeral. Going to the / graveyard the horses had ambled slowly; coming home they trotted along / briskly so that from under their feet the gravel grit sprang up, to / blow out behind in little squills and pennons of yellow dust. The black / plumes in the headstalls of the white span that drew the empty hearse / nodded briskly. It was only their colour which kept those plumes / from being downright cheerful. Also, en route to the cemetery, the / pallbearers, both honorary and active, had marched in double file at / the head of the procession. Now, returning, they rode in carriages / especially provided for them.

The first carriage -- that is to say, the first one following the / hearse -- held four passengers: firstly, the widowed sister of the dead / man, from up state somewhere; secondly and thirdly, two strange priests / who had come over from Hopkinsburg to conduct the services; finally / and fourthly, the late Father Minor's housekeeper, a lean and elderly / spinster whose devoutness made her dour; indeed, a person whom piety / beset almost as a physical affliction. Seeing her any time at all, the / observer went away filled with the belief that in her particular case / the more certain this woman might be of blessedness hereafter, the more / miserable she would feel in the meantime. Now, as her grief-drawn / face and reddened eyes looked forth from the carriage window upon the / familiar panorama of Buckner Street, all about her bespoke the profound / conviction that this world, already lost in sin, was doubly lost since / Father Minor had gone to take his reward.