Had a “Daisy.”
“Come out through the back way and see my daisy!” he chuckled as he rubbed his hands together.
“What! gone into the funeral flowers business on your own account? Yet, after all, why not? An undertaker might as well furnish the flowers as the coffin.”
“Come on. There–how does that strike you?”
“That’s a hearse–a new one.”
“But it’s the daisy I was speaking of. Isn’t she spic-span and shiny?”
“Very nice.”
“I should smile. It lays over anything of the sort in this town, and don’t you forget it! Get in and lie down and let me bob the springs to show how easy it rides.”
“No. thank you.”
“You go on! There’s points about a hearse the public ought to know. Get up on the driver’s seat.”
“Excuse me, but I prefer a family carriage.”
“Oh, pshaw! But you are too thin-skinned. Just notice these springs. I tell you it will be a positive pleasure to ride above ’em. The dish of those wheels is absolutely perfect, and such a finish!”
“Yes, very nice hearse.”
“You bet! Say, it will be a proud hour in my life when I hitch a span of white horses to that vehicle and prance around to the house of the late deceased. Lands! But won’t the other undertakers look blue! Say, feel of these curtains–pure silk.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Go on, now! Hang it, but when an undertaker puts up his cash for a regular daisy like this you newspaper fellows ought to encourage him. Just remember that the old-fashioned way of carrying a body around in a lumber wagon and then gaze on this! Just notice how these rear doors open to admit the coffin.”
“Very handy.”
“Handy? Why, man, it’s superb! Have you noticed the glass in the sides?”
“Seems to be very good.”
“Good! Why, it’s the finest in the world–the very finest! I wanted something to show off the coffin, and here it is. I tell you, the late deceased ought to feel proud to ride in such a vehicle! You can say in your paper that it knocks ’em all out. Say, how are you on styles?”
“What styles?”
“Coffins and shrouds, of course. Come in a minute. I’ve got a new thing in shrouds—something you are bound to appreciate, and I’m after a patent on a coffin with an air-receiver in it. Say! do me a favor. Let me enclose you in my new coffin and see how long the supply of air will last you. I’ll bet a dol–“
But the reporter had gone.
Bristol [VT] Herald 9 July 1885: p. 4
Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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