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“Yes, sir! Meet that boy on the street, or go up in his office, you’d think that he was the gayest feller in town. I tell you there wasn’t anything pathetic about Mel Bickner! He didn’t believe in it. And at home he had a funny story every evening of the world, about something ‘d happened during the day; and ‘d whistle to the guitar, or git his maw into a game of cards with his aunt and the girls. Law! that boy didn’t believe in no house of mourning. He’d be up at four in the morning, hoein’ up their old garden; raised garden-truck for their table, sparrow-grass and sweet corn–yes, and roses, too; always had the house full of roses in June-time; never was a house sweeter-smellin’ to go into.

“Mel was what I call a useful citizen. As I said, I knowed him well. I don’t recollect I ever heard him speak of himself, nor yet of his father but once–for that, I reckon, he jest couldn’t; and for himself; I don’t believe it ever occurred to him.

“And he was a smart boy. Now, you take it, all in all, a boy can’t be as smart as Mel was, and work as hard as he did, and not git somewhere–in this State, anyway! And so, about the fifth year, things took a sudden change for him; his father’s enemies and his own friends, both, had to jest about own they was beat. The crowd that had been running the conventions and keepin’ their own men in all the offices, had got to be pretty unpopular, and they had the sense to see that they’d have to branch out and connect up with some mighty good men, jest to keep the party in power. Well, sir, Mel had got to be about the most popular and respected man in the county. Then one day I met him on the street; he was on his way to buy an overcoat, and he was lookin’ skimpier and more froze-up and genialer than ever. It was March, and up to jest that time things had be’n hardest of all for Mel. I walked around to the store with him, and he was mighty happy; goin’ to send his mother north in the summer, and the girls were goin’ to have a party, and Bob, his little brother, could go to the best school in the country in the fall. Things had come his way at last, and that very morning the crowd had called him in and told him they were goin’ to run him for county clerk.

“Well, sir, the next evening I heard Mel was sick. Seein’ him only the day before on the street, out and well, I didn’t think anything of it–thought prob’ly a cold or something like that; but in the morning I heard the doctor said he was likely to die. Of course I couldn’t hardly believe it; thing like that never does seem possible, but they all said it was true, and there wasn’t anybody on the street that day that didn’t look blue or talked about anything else. Nobody seemed to know what was the matter with him exactly, and I reckon the doctor did jest the wrong thing for it. Near as I can make out, it was what they call appendicitis nowadays, and had come on him in the night.

“Along in the afternoon I went out there to see if there was anything I could do. You know what a house in that condition is like. Old Fes Bainbridge, who was some sort of a relation, and me sat on the stairs together outside Mel’s room. We could hear his voice, clear and strong and hearty as ever. He was out of pain; and he had to die with the full flush of health and strength on him, and he knowed it. Not wantin’ to go, through the waste and wear of a long sickness, but with all the ties of life clinchin’ him here, and success jest comin.’ We heard him speak of us, amongst others, old Fes and me; wanted ’em to be sure not forget to tell me to remember to vote for Fillmore if the ground-hog saw his shadow election year, which was an old joke I always had with him. He was awful worried about his mother, though he tried not to show it, and when the minister wanted to pray fer him, we heard him say, ‘No, sir, you pray fer my mamma!’ That was the only thing that was different from his usual way of speakin’; he called his mother ‘mamma, and he wouldn’t let ’em pray for him neither; not once; all the time he could spare for their prayin’ was put in for her.