When you go, which it wouldn’t hurt the county none if you went pretty quick, what difference does it make to you whether you get buried or what you call cremated?
I hear a lot of them say they don’t want to get burnt up.
Why? Just tell me that once.
Some of them is Seven Day Adventists.
How many of them is Seven Day Adventists?
There’s a whole lot of them Seven Day Adventists. I’m a Seven Day Adventist.
Is that right?
Well, it’s according as according. Sometimes more of them gets committed than other times.
That kind of makes it bad.
Yes, that’s a fact, Mr. Wade, I’ve kind of thought of that myself, that makes it bad. But I say, just because them people thinks they’re going to step out of the grave in a couple of years, that ain’t hardly no reason for the county to spend ten thousand dollars a year burying ’em. Maybe they’re going to step out of the grave and maybe they ain’t.
That there is something nobody can tell.
And then I hear a lot of talk going around, them people ain’t going to have no white gown.
There ain’t nothing to that, Mr. Wade. All them people gets a white gown. Ain’t no fancy gown, but we don’t put them away without no clothes on.
But the gown it gets burned up in that there furnace just like this here jawbone.
That jawbone didn’t get burned up. You got it in your hand.
I ain’t got the rest of that stiff in my hand. That I ain’t.
Is them preachers Seven Day Adventists?
I believe they are, Mr. Wade.
Them preachers is raising hell, too.
You been talking to them preachers, too, have you? First you talk to the paper men, then you talk to the preachers.
I never knowed they was paper men.
Them Seven Day Adventists makes it bad. Course, it don’t make no difference to me. I say if they get put away Christian, that’s all anybody could ask.
That’s all anybody could ask, Mr. Wade. And them people gets put away as Christian as I ever hope to get put away. Mr. Mukens prays over every one, and Mr. Mukens can put up as good a prayer as the next one, if you ask me. Even this man can tell you Mr. Mukens can put up a good prayer.
He prays pretty good, but he ain’t no regular preacher. Not what them people wants for a regular preacher. I hear a lot of talk going on about it.
What I’m figuring on is what to tell the County Commissioners. Them papers has stirred up such a fuss we got to take action on it.
Well, I tell you how it is, Mr. Wade, it don’t make no difference to me, one way or the other. Fact of the matter is, it’ll save me and Mr. Mukens a whole lot of work. It ain’t no light job, carrying them stiffs downstairs like we have to do. But what I say is, if the commissioners think them Seven Day Adventists had ought to be buried regular, why, just let the commissioners give me the money and I’ll bury them regular and put them other people away the way we been doing.
That seems to be perfectly fair and reasonable.
That there would certainly satisfy them people down in the lower end of the county. Them people is all Seven Day Adventists. What I’m thinking about is the other sections of the county. Maybe we’ll get ’em all stirred up.
I don’t think you would, Mr. Wade. When you come to these other people that gets committed, why, nobody don’t know what their religion is. They don’t know theirself.
Well, I guess we better do it that way then. I’ll call the commissioners in special meeting, and then we can stop all this fuss in the papers. Will you take this man back with you?
That I will, Mr. Wade. And thank you for the way you treated me in this here matter. I sure do appreciate it. Because what I say, when a man has done his duty like I have ever since I been down there, why, he kind of hates to see somebody come out and say he ain’t no account and ought to be run out, like of that. I sure do appreciate the way you done, Mr. Wade.
Mr. Wade, I just want to say that you treated me and Mr. Lerch white about this, and if there’s ever a time I can return the favor, why just let me know.
Thank you, sir, Mr. Wade, thank you, sir. And I never knowed them was paper men, Mr. Wade, I hope Christ may kill me if I did.
Good day, gentlemen.
Don’t Monkey with Uncle Sam
The Twentieth Century Limited. In the club car, as it draws near Chicago, sit three men, dressed in a blue suit, a brown suit, and a gray suit, staring out at the shore of Lake Michigan.
THE BLUE: Won’t be long now.
THE BROWN: About twenty minutes, if we’re on time. Great town.
THE BLUE: None like it.
THE BROWN: That’s right. Some of them knock Chicago, but there’s one thing they got to hand it: It’s not like any of the others.
THE BLUE: Look at that.
THE BROWN: Lake’s pretty, this time of year.
THE BLUE: I don’t mean the lake. Didn’t you see it? Old campaign poster. “Bill the Builder.” I swear, I don’t think I’ve thought of Bill Thompson in a year. Well, they come and they go.
THE BROWN: And specially here.
THE BLUE: And specially here. And specially here... Wonder what Capone’s doing now.
THE BROWN: Making little ones out of big ones.
THE BLUE: Stead of making dead ones out of live ones. Just the same, I say he got a raw deal.
THE BROWN: You and me both.
THE BLUE: I don’t claim Al was any better than he ought to be. And if they’d got him for some of the real stuff that he done, got him, you understand, even if it was in the chair, I’d say fine. I’d say fair enough, Al. You got it in the neck, where you give it to plenty of others, and things is square. But this income tax thing, I don’t buy that. Something wrong with it.
THE BROWN: Because look. It’s just like you had a kid. He steals a apple off the wop, and if you burnt his tail for that, it’s all right. But when you burn his tail for not coming home and giving you half the apple, what sense does that make? Why that’s nothing more or less than making yourself a partner in crime. When you’re going to get a man, get him right, I say. Don’t go sneaking up from behind and pull something that makes you a worse crook than he is.
THE BLUE: You hit it. Right on the head.
THE GRAY: H’m.
THE BLUE (detecting something in the Gray’s voice, and backing water hastily): Course it’s only one man’s opinion. If it was somebody that Al done something to, or maybe some of his friends, why—