It is not too much to say that a little shock went through the neighborhood when it was known that Calvin was dead, so marked was his individuality; and his friends, one after another, came in to see him.  There was no sentimental nonsense about his obsequies; it was felt that any parade would have been distasteful to him.  John, who acted as undertaker, prepared a candle-box for him and I believe assumed a professional decorum; but there may have been the usual levity underneath, for I heard that he remarked in the kitchen that it was the “driest wake he ever attended.”  Everybody, however, felt a fondness for Calvin, and regarded him with a certain respect.  Between him and Bertha there existed a great friendship, and she apprehended his nature; she used to say that sometimes she was afraid of him, he looked at her so intelligently; she was never certain that he was what he appeared to be.

When I returned, they had laid Calvin on a table in an upper chamber by an open window.  It was February.  He reposed in a candle-box, lined about the edge with evergreen, and at his head stood a little wine-glass with flowers.  He lay with his head tucked down in his arms,—­a favorite position of his before the fire,—­as if asleep in the comfort of his soft and exquisite fur.  It was the involuntary exclamation of those who saw him, “How natural he looks!” As for myself, I said nothing.  John buried him under the twin hawthorn-trees,—­one white and the other pink,—­in a spot where Calvin was fond of lying and listening to the hum of summer insects and the twitter of birds.

Perhaps I have failed to make appear the individuality of character that was so evident to those who knew him.  At any rate, I have set down nothing concerning him, but the literal truth.  He was always a mystery.  I did not know whence he came; I do not know whither he has gone.  I would not weave one spray of falsehood in the wreath I lay upon his grave.

BACKLOG STUDIES

By Charles Dudley Warner

FIRST STUDY

I

The fire on the hearth has almost gone out in New England; the hearth has gone out; the family has lost its center; age ceases to be respected; sex is only distinguished by a difference between millinery bills and tailors’ bills; there is no more toast-and-cider; the young are not allowed to eat mince-pies at ten o’clock at night; half a cheese is no longer set to toast before the fire; you scarcely ever see in front of the coals a row of roasting apples, which a bright little girl, with many a dive and start, shielding her sunny face from the fire with one hand, turns from time to time; scarce are the gray-haired sires who strop their razors on the family Bible, and doze in the chimney-corner.  A good many things have gone out with the fire on the hearth.