AFTER THE FUNERAL.

BY J. M. BAILEY.

It was just after the funeral.

The bereaved and subdued seated in the sittingThere was that con

widow, enveloped in millinery gloom, was room with a few sympathizing friends.

strained look so peculiar to the occasion observable on every The widow

countenance.

sighed.

"How do you feel, my dear?" observed her sister. "Oh! I don't know," said the poor woman, with difficulty restraining her tears. "But I hope everything passed off well."

"Indeed it did," said all the ladies.

"It was as large and respectable a funeral as I have seen this winter," said the sister, looking around upon the others.

"Yes, it was," said the lady from next door. "I was saying to Mrs. Slocum, only ten minutes ago, that the attendance couldn't have been better-the bad going considered."

THE COLONEL.

"Did you see the Taylors?" asked the widow faintly, looking at her sister. "They go so rarely to funerals, that I was surprised to see them here."

"Oh, yes! the Taylors were all here," said the sympathizing sister. "As you say, they go but a little: they are so exclusive!" "I thought I saw the Curtises also," suggested the bereaved woman droopingly.

"Oh, yes!" chimed in several. "They came in their own car

riage too," said the sister animatedly. "And then there were the Randalls, and the Van Rensselaers. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had her cousin from the city with her; and Mrs. Randall wore a very heavy black silk, which I am sure was quite new. Did you see Col. Haywood and his daughters, love?"

"I thought I saw them; but I wasn't sure. They were here, then, were they?"

"Yes, indeed!" said they all again; and the lady who lived across the way observed:

"The colonel was very sociable, and inquired most kindly about you, and the sickness of your husband."

The widow smiled faintly. She was gratified by the interest shown by the colonel.

The friends now rose to go, each bidding her good-bye, and expressing the hope that she would be calm. Her sister bowed them out. When she returned, she said:

"You can see, my love, what the neighbors think of it. I wouldn't have had anything unfortunate to happen for a good deal. But nothing did. The arrangements couldn't have been better."

"I think some of the people in the neighborhood must have been surprised to see so many of the up-town people here," suggested the afflicted woman, trying to look hopeful.

"You may be quite sure of that," asserted the sister. "I could see that plain enough by their looks."

"Well, I am glad there is no occasion for talk," said the widow, smoothing the skirt of her dress.

And after that the boys took the chairs home, and the house was put in order

CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS.

BY MARK TWAIN.

I VISITED St. Louis lately, and on my way west, after changing cars at Terre Haute, Indiana, a mild, benevolent-looking gentleman of about forty-five, or maybe fifty, came in at one of the way-stations and sat down beside me. We talked together pleasantly on various subjects for an hour, perhaps, and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining. When he learned that I was from Washington, he immediately began to ask questions about various public men, and about Congressional affairs; and I saw very shortly that I was conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar with the ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even to the ways and manners and customs of procedure of Senators and Representatives in the Chambers of the National Legislature. Presently two men halted near us for a single moment, and one said to the other:

"Harris, if you'll do that for me, I'll never forget you, my boy."

My new comrade's eyes lighted pleasantly. The words had touched upon a happy memory, I thought. Then his face settled into thoughtfulness-almost into gloom. He turned to me and said, "Let me tell you a story; let me give you a secret chapter of my life—a chapter that has never been referred to by me since its events transpired. Listen patiently, and promise that you will not interrupt me.'

I said I would not, and he related the following strange adventure, speaking sometimes with animation, sometimes with melancholy, but always with feeling and earnestness.

THE STRANGER'S NARRATIVE.

"On the 19th of December, 1853, I started from St. Louis on the evening train bound for Chicago. There were only twentyfour passengers, all told. There were no ladies and no children. We were in excellent spirits, and pleasant acquaintanceships were soon formed. The journey bade fair to be a happy one; and no individual in the party, I think, had even the vaguest presentiment of the horrors we were soon to undergo.

"At 11 P. M. it began to snow hard. Shortly after leaving the small village of Welden, we entered upon that tremendous prairie solitude that stretches its leagues on leagues of houseless dreariness far away towards the Jubilee Settlements. The winds, unobstructed by trees or hills, or even vagrant rocks, whistled fiercely across the level desert, driving the falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves of a stormy sea. The snow was deepening fast; and we knew, by the diminished speed of the train, that the engine was ploughing through it with steadily increasing difficulty. Indeed, it almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of great drifts that piled themselves like colossal graves across the track. Conversation began to flag. Cheerfulness gave place to grave concern. The possibility of being imprisoned in the snow, on the bleak prairie, fifty miles from any house, presented itself to every mind, and extended its depressing influence over every spirit.

"At two o'clock in the morning I was aroused out of an uneasy slumber by the ceasing of all motion about me. The appalling truth flashed upon me instantly-we were captives in a snowdrift! All hands to the rescue!' Every man sprang to obey. Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consciousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to us all. Shovels, hands, boards-anything, everything, that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition. It was a weird picture, that small company of frantic men fighting the banking snows, half in the blackest shadow and half in the angry light of the locomotive's reflector.

"One short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of our efforts. The storm barricaded the track with a dozen drifts while

we dug one away. And, worse than this, it was discovered that the last grand charge the engine had made upon the enemy had broken the fore-and-aft shaft of the driving-wheel! With a free track before us, we should still have been helpless. We entered the car wearied with labor, and very sorrowful. We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed our situation. We had no provisions whatever-in this lay our chief distress. We could not freeze, for there was a good supply of wood in the tender. This was our only comfort. The discussion ended at last in accepting the disheartening decision of the conductor, viz., that

it would be death for any man to attempt to travel fifty miles on foot through snow like that. We could not send for help; and even if we could, it could not come. We must submit, and await, as patiently as we might, succor or starvation! I think the stoutest heart there felt a momentary chill when those words were uttered. "Within the hour conversation subsided to a low murmur here and there about the car, caught fitfully between the rising and falling of the blast; the lamps grew dim; and the majority of the castaways settled themselves

among the flickering shadows to think-to forget the present, if they could to sleep, if they might.

"The eternal night-it surely seemed eternal to us-wore its lagging hours away at last, and the cold gray dawn broke in the east. As the light grew stronger the passengers began to stir and give signs of life; one after another, and each in turn, pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and glanced out at the windows upon the cheerless prospect. It was cheerless indeed!-not a living thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation; nothing but a vast white desert; uplifted sheets of snow drifting hither and thither before the wind-a world

RICHARD H. GASTON.

of eddying flakes shutting out the firmament above.

"All day we moped about the cars, saying little, thinking much. Another lingering, dreary night—and hunger.

"Another dawning-another day of silence, sadness, wasting hunger, hopeless watching for succor that could not come. A night of restless slumber, filled with dreams of feasting-wakings distressed with the gnawings of hunger.

"The fourth day came and went-and the fifth! Five days of dreadful imprisonment! A savage hunger looked out at every