“Cold weather has got me,” said Simple. “I swear, when I went out to work this morning, I thought I would freeze to death. This cold wave is nothing to play with. Hawkins is talking like the rent man does on the fifteenth, when you should have paid your rent on the first. I have not done nothing to the weather, so I do not know why the weather should be so hard on me. But I am so ashy in that mirror I look like ashes, and so cold I feel like ice. That’s why I’m talking about death this evening—because if I do die of cold, I want some FINE words said over my body—which is why I think I had better say them myself right now, then I know they will be said, because my wife may not have enough money to pay the minister to state what I want stated. I wants to be praised to the skies, even if I do go to hell.”

“Such a desire is understandable,” I said, “so go ahead, preach.”

“I wants myself,” said Simple, “a sermon preached by a good minister something like this: ‘Jesse B. Semple, born in Virginia, married twice for better or for worse—the first time for worse the last time for good. Jesse B. Semple, he were a good man. He were raised good, lived good, did good, and died good.’

“Whereupon, in my coffin, I would say, ‘Rev, you have lied good. Keep on!’

“And my old minister would preach on: ‘Jesse B. Semple deserves to rest in peace, deserves to pass on over to the other shores where there is light eternal, where darkness never comes, and where he will receive a crown upon his noble head, that head that thought such noble thoughts, that head that never studied evil in this world, that head that never harbored harm—that head, that head, oh, that head of Jesse B. Semple that receiveth his crown. And slippers! Golden slippers on his feet with heelplates of silver to make music up and down the golden streets. Oh, Jesse B. Semple, walking on the golden streets, hailing a celestial cab to go whirling through eternal space down the Milky Way to see can he find some old friends in the far-off parts of heaven! Angel after angel passes and he does not know any of them. He does not know this angel, nor that angel. But here, oh, here at last is an angel that knows him.’

“‘Rev! Rev!’ I would whisper from my coffin, ‘You will have to tell me the angel’s name, because I don’t recollect who it is. I think all my friends must have gone to hell.’