University of Virginia Library

THE WIDOW'S PROTEST.

One of the saddest things that ever came under my notice (said the banker's
clerk) was there in Corning, during the war. Dan Murphy enlisted as a
private, and fought very bravely. The boys all liked him, and when a
wound by-and-by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavy work
for him, they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. He made money then,
and sent it always to his wife to bank for him. She was a washer and ironer, and
knew enough by hard experience to keep money when she got it. She didn't waste
a penny. On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank account grew.
She grieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-working life
she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick, and without a
dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of suffering so again. Well, at
last Dan died; and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for him, telegraphed
to Mrs. Murphy to know if she would like to have him embalmed and sent
home; when you know the usual custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a
shallow hole, and then inform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy
jumped to the conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm
her dead husband, and so she telegraphed “Yes.” It was at the “wake” that the
bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow.

She uttered a wild sad wail that pierced every heart, and said, “Sivinty-foive
dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I was goin'
to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in such expinsive curiassities!”

The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the house.