The Mourning Brothers

Name: Fantastic Fables - The Mourning Brothers
Author: Ambrose Bierce

OBSERVING that he was about to die, an Old Man called his two Sons to his bedside and expounded the situation.

"My children," said he, "you have not shown me many marks of respect during my life, but you will attest your sorrow for my death. To him who the longer wears a weed upon his hat in memory of me shall go my entire fortune. I have made a will to that effect."

So when the Old Man was dead each of the youths put a weed upon his hat and wore it until he was himself old, when, seeing that neither would give in, they agreed that the younger should leave off his weeds and the elder give him half of the estate. But when the elder applied for the property he found that there had been an Executor!

Thus were hypocrisy and obstinacy fitly punished.

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Chicago: Ambrose Bierce, "The Mourning Brothers," Fantastic Fables in Fantastic Fables (New York: The Century Co., 1899), Original Sources, accessed December 10, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=97FZB1BYRZPW7VP.

MLA: Bierce, Ambrose. "The Mourning Brothers." Fantastic Fables, in Fantastic Fables, New York, The Century Co., 1899, Original Sources. 10 Dec. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=97FZB1BYRZPW7VP.

Harvard: Bierce, A, 'The Mourning Brothers' in Fantastic Fables. cited in 1899, Fantastic Fables, The Century Co., New York. Original Sources, retrieved 10 December 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=97FZB1BYRZPW7VP.