The Dead Woman’s Photograph
Virgil Hoyt, a photographer’s assistant up at St. Paul, had a whimsical view of the world, and he did not like to be bothered with anything disagreeable. That is the reason that he loathes and detests going to a house of mourning to photograph a corpse. The horribly bad taste of it offends him partly, and partly he is annoyed at having to shoulder, even for a few moments, a part of someone’s burden of sorrow. He doesn’t like sorrow and would willingly canoe 500 miles up the cold Canadian rivers to get rid of it. Nevertheless, as assistant photographer, it is often his duty to do this very kind of thing.
