Heman White Chaplin

“ Before me lies the form of a man who, though he has passed his days with no distinction but that of an honest man, has lived through some of the most remarkable events of all the ages. For a hundred years a mighty pageant has been passing before him. I would rather have lived that hundred years than any other. ”

“ We may study and argue, all our lives, to discover the nature of life, or the form it takes beyond the grave; but in one moment of swift transition the righteous man may learn it all. We differ widely one from another, here, in mental power. ”

“ He called the attention of his hearers to this almost miraculous art of indelibly fixing the expression of a countenance, and drew a lesson as to the permanent effect of our daily looks and expression on those among whom we live. ”

“ I told you everything there was about father yesterday,” she said. “I 'm sure you can't lack of things to put in; why, father lived a hundred years—and longer, too, for he was a hundred years and six days, you remember.”
“You know,” said Holt, “there are a great many things that are very interesting to a man's immediate friends that don't interest the public.” ”

“ It doos seem amazing, as the minister said: you set down, and square yourself, and slick your hair, and stare stiddy into a funnel, and a man ducks his head under a covering, and pop! there you be, as natural as life,—if not more so. And when Uncle Capen was a young man, there wasn't nothing but portraits and minnytures, and these black-paper-and-scissors portraits,—what do they call 'em? ”

“ With the late improvements in agricultural machinery, with the cheapening of steel rails, the boundless prairie farms of the West are now brought into competition with the fields of Great Britain in supplying the Englishman's table, and seem not unlikely, within this generation, to break down the aristocratic holding of land, and so perhaps to undermine aristocracy itself. ”

“ The minister smiled, shook hands with Mr. Small, and went home.
The church was crowded. Horses filled the sheds, horses were tied to the fences all up and down the street. Funerals are always popular in the country, and this one had a double element of attractiveness. The whole population of the town, having watched with a lively interest, for years back, Uncle Capen's progress to his hundredth birthday, expected now some electrical effect, analogous to an apotheosis. ”

“ Mr. Holt is collecting facts about Uncle Capen for his funeral sermon, and I thought that my good wife could help him out, if anybody could. So I will leave him.”
And the Doctor, nodding, went into the hall for his coat and driving-gloves, and, going out, disappeared about the corner of the house.
“You will really oblige me very much, Mrs. Hunter,” said the minister, “—or Mrs. French,—if you can give me any particulars about old Mr. Capen's life. His family seem to be rather sensitive, and they depend on a long, old-fashioned funeral sermon ”

“ The opening exercises were finished, a hymn was sung,—
“Life is a span,”
and Father Cobb arose to make his introductory remarks.
He began with some reminiscences of the first time he saw Uncle Capen, some thirty years before, and spoke of having viewed him even then as an aged man, and of having remarked to him that he was walking down the valley of life with one foot in the grave. He called attention to Uncle Capen's virtues, and pointed out their connection with his longevity. He had not smoked for some forty years ”

“ His sally was warmly greeted.
“The minister might narrate,” said Mr. Blood, “what Uncle Capen said to Issachar, when Issachar told him that he charged high for sawing wood. 'See here,' says Uncle Capen, 's'pos'n I do. My arms are shorter'n other folks's, and it takes me just so much longer to do it.'”
“Well,” said Mr. Noyes, “I'm a fair man; always do exactly right is the rule I go by; and I will frankly admit, now and here, that if it's a biographical discourse they want, they 'll have to cut corners.”
“Pre-cise-ly” said Mr. Snell; “and that's just what they do want.” ”

“ But if you 're feeling nervous, perhaps we 'd better have him still; he 's always ready.”
“Just as you like,” said Holt, modestly; “if he would be willing to preach the sermon, we might leave it that way, and I will add a few remarks.” But Maria's zeal for Father Cobb was a flash in the pan. He was a sickly farmer, a licensed preacher, who, when he was called upon occasionally to meet a sudden exigency, usually preached on the beheading of John the Baptist.
“I guess you 've got things enough to write,” said Maria, consolingly ”

“ Now that we sort o' stand and gaze at Uncle Capen at a fair distance, as it were, he looms. Ef he only hed n't kep' so quiet, always, about them 'ere wonders. A man really ought, in justice to himself, to blow his own horn—jest a little. But that was a grand discourse, wa'n't it, now?”
“Oh, yes,” said Maria, “though I did feel nervous for the young man. Still, when you come to think what materials he had to make a sermon out of,—why, how could he help it! And yet, I doubt not he takes all the credit to himself.” ”

“ At last he condescended to explain.
“Preaching Uncle Capen's funeral sermon.”
There was a subdued general laugh. Even Mr. Hamblin's leathern apron shook.
Mr. Noyes, however, painfully looking down upon his beard to draw out a white hair, maintained his serious expression.
“I don't see much 'job' in that,” he said; “a minister's supposed to preach a hundred and four sermons in each and every year, and there's plenty more where they come from. What's one sermon more or less, when stock costs nothing? It's like wheeling gravel from the pit.”
“O.K.,” said Mr. Snell ”