In passing through New England, a stranger will be struck with the
variety, in taste and feeling, respecting burial-places. Here and
there may be seen a solitary grave, in a desolate and dreary pasture
lot, and anon under the shade of some lone tree, the simple stone
reared by affection to the memory of one known and loved by the
humble fireside only. There, on that gentle elevation, sloping green
and beautiful toward the south, is a family enclosure adorned with
trees and filled with the graves of the household. How many breaking
hearts have there left the loved till that bright morning! Here in
this garden, beside the vine-covered arbor and amidst the shrubbery
which her own hand planted, is the monument to the faithful wife and
loving mother. How appropriate! How beautiful! And to the old
landholders of New England, what motive to hold sacred from the hand
of lucre so strong as the ground loved by the living as the burial-
place of _their_ dead!
Apropos to burying in gardens, I heard a story of an old man who was
bent on interring his wife in his garden, despite of the opposition
of all his neighbors to his doing so. Indeed, the old fellow avowed
this as his chief reason and to all their entreaties and deprecations
and earnest requests he still declared he would do it. Finding
everything they could do to be of no avail, the people bethought
themselves of a certain physician, who was said to have great
influence over the old man, and who owned an orchard adjoining the
very garden; so, going to him in a body, they besought him to attempt
to change the determination of his obstinate friend. The doctor
consented to do so and went. After offering his condolence on the
loss of his wife, and proffering any aid he might be able to render
at the funeral, the doctor said, "I understand you intend to bury
your deceased wife in your garden."
"Yes," answered the old man, "I do. And the more people object the
more I'm determined to do it!"
"Right!" replied the doctor, with an emphatic shake of the head,
"Right! I applaud the deed. I'd bury her there, if I was you. The
boys are always stealing the pears from my favorite tree that
overhangs your garden, and by and by you'll die, Uncle Diddie, and
they'll bury you there, too, and then I'm sure that the boys will
never dare steal another pear."
"No! I'll be hanged if I bury her there," said the old man in great
wrath. "I'll bury her in the graveyard."
New England can boast her beautiful places of sculpture, but as a
common thing they are too much neglected, and attractive only to the
lover of oddities and curious old epitaphs. Occasionally you may see
a strangely shaped tomb, or as in a well-known village, a knocker
placed on the door of his family vault by some odd specimen of
humanity. When asked the reason for doing so singular a thing, he
gravely replied that "when the old gentleman should come to claim his
own, the tenants might have the pleasure of saying, 'not at home,' or
of fleeing out of the back door."
In passing through these neglected grounds you will often find some
touchingly beautiful scriptural allusion--some apt quotation or some
emblem so lovely and instructive that the memory of it will go with
you for days. Here in a neglected spot and amid a cluster of raised
stones is the grave of the stranger clergyman's child, who died on
its journey. The inscription is sweet when taken in connection with
the portion of sacred history from which the quotation is made: "Is
it well with the child? And she answered, It is well." Again, the
only inscription is an emblem--a butterfly rising from the chrysalis.
Glorious thought, embodied in emblem so singular! "Sown in
corruption, raised in incorruption!"
Then come you to some strangely odd, as for instance:
"Here lies John Auricular,
Who in the ways of the Lord walked perpendicular"
Again:
"Many a cold wind o'er my body shall roll
While in Abraham's bosom I'm feasting my soul"
appropriate certainly, as the grave was on a cold northeast slope of
one of our bleak hills. Again, a Dutchman's epitaph for his twin
babes:
"Here lies two babes, dead as two nits,
Who shook to death mit ague fits.
They was too good to live mit me.
So God He took 'em to live mit He."
There is the grave of a young man who, dying suddenly, was eulogized
with this strange aim at the sublime:
"He lived,
He died!"
Not a hundred miles from Boston is a gravestone the epitaph upon
which, to all who knew the parties, borders strongly upon the
burlesque. A widower who within a few months buried his wife and
adopted daughter, the former of whom was all her life long a thorn in
his flesh, and whose death could not but have been a relief, wrote
thus: "They were lovely and beloved in their lives, and in death were
not divided." Poor man! Well _he_ knew how full of strife and
sorrow an evil woman can make life! He was worn to a shadow before
her death, and his hair was all gone. Many of the neighbors thought
surely that _he_ well knew what had become of it, especially as
it disappeared by the handful. But the grave covers all faults; and
those who knew her could only hope that she might rest from her
labors and her works follow her!
On a low, sandy mound far down on the Cape rises a tall slate stone,
with fitting emblems and epitaphs as follows:
"Here lies Judy and John
That lovely pair,
John was killed by a whale,
And Judy sleeps here."
--Sketches of New England.