Strolling through Lone Mountain cemetery one day my attention was
arrested by the inconsolable grief of a granite angel bewailing the
loss of “Jacob Hunker, aged 67.” The attitude of utter dejection, the
look of matchless misery upon that angel’s face sank into my heart like
water into a sponge. I was about to offer some words of condolence when
another man, similarly affected, got in before me, and laying a rather
unsteady hand upon the celestial shoulder tipped back a very senile
hat, and pointing to the name on the stone remarked with the most exact
care and scrupulous accent: “Friend of yours, perhaps; been dead long?”
There was no reply; he continued: “Very worthy man, that Jake; knew him
up in Tuolumne. Good feller—Jake.” No response: the gentleman settled
his hat still farther back, and continued with a trifle less exactness
of speech: “I say, young wom’n, Jake was my pard in the mines. Goo’
fell’r I ’bserved!”
The last sentence was shot straight into the celestial ear at short
range. It produced no effect. The gentleman’s patience and rhetorical
vigilance were now completely exhausted. He walked round, and planting
himself defiantly in front of the vicarious mourner, he stuck his hands
doggedly into his pockets and delivered the following rebuke, like the
desultory explosions of a bunch of damaged fire-crackers: “It wont do,
old girl; ef Jake knowed how you’s treatin’ his old pard he’d jest git
up and snatch you bald headed—_he_ would! You ain’t no friend o’ his’n
and you ain’t yur fur no good—you bet! Now you jest ’sling your swag
an’ bolt back to heaven, or I’m hanged ef I don’t have suthin’ worse’n
horse-stealin’ to answer fur, this time.”
And he took a step forward. At this point I interfered.