A funeral is a depressing affair under the best circumstances, but a
funeral in a lonely farm-house in March, the roads full of slush, the
ragged gray clouds leaping the sullen hills like eagles, is tragic.
The teams arrived splashed with mud, the women blue with cold under
their scanty cotton-quilt lap robes, their hats set awry by the wind.
They scurried into the house, to sit and shiver in the best room, where
all the chairs that could contrive to stand erect, and all of any sort
that could be borrowed, were crammed in together to seat the women
folks.
The men drove out to the barn, and having blanketed their teams with lap
robes, picked their way through the slush of the yard over to the lee
side of the haystack, where the pale sun occasionally shone.
They spoke of "diseased" Williams, as if Diseased were his Christian
name. They whittled shingles or stalks of straw as they talked.
Sooner or later, after each new arrival, they branched off upon
politics, and the McKinley Bill was handled gingerly. If any one, in his
zeal, raised his voice above a certain pitch, some one said "Hish!" and
the newcomer's voice sank again to that abnormal quiet which falls now
and again on these loud-voiced folk of the wind and open spaces.
The boys hung around the kitchen and smoke-house, playing sly jokes upon
each other in order to provoke that explosion of laughter so thoroughly
enjoyed by those who can laugh noiselessly.
A snort of this sort brought Deacon Williams out to reprimand them,
"Boys, boys, you should have more respect for the dead."
The preacher came. The choir raised a wailing chant for the dead, but
the group by the haystack did not move.
Occasionally they came back, after talking about seeding and the price
of hogs, to the discussion of the dead man's affairs.
"I s'pose his property will go to Emmy and Serry, half and half."
"I expec' so. He always said so, an' John wa'n't a man to whiffle about
every day."
"Well, Emmy won't make no fuss, but if Ike don't git more'n his half,
I'll eat the greaser."
"Who's ex-e_cu_tor?"
"Deacon Williams, I expect."
"Well, the Deacon's a slick one," some one observed, as if that were an
excellent quality in an executor.
"They ain't no love lost between Bill Gray and Harkey, I don't expect."
"No, I don't think they is."
"Ike don't seem to please people. It's queer, too. He tries awful hard."
The voice of the preacher within, raised to a wild shout, interrupted
them.
"The Elder's gettin' warmed up," said one of the story-tellers, pausing
in his talk. "And so I told Bill if he wanted the cord-wood--"
The sun shone warmer, and the chickens _caw-cawed_ feebly. The colts
whinnied, and a couple of dogs rolled and tumbled in wild frolic, while
the voice of the preacher sounded dolefully or in humming monotone.
Meanwhile, in the house, in the best room and in the best seats near the
coffin, the women, in their black, worn dresses, with wrinkled, sallow
faces and gnarled hands, sat shivering. Theirs was to be the luxury of
the ceremony.
The carpet was damp and muddy, the house was chill, and the damp wind
filled them all with ague; but they had so much to see and talk about,
that time passed rapidly. Each one entering was studied critically to
see whether dress and deportment were proper to the occasion or not, and
if one of the girls smiled a little as she entered, some one was sure to
whisper:--
"Heartless thing, how _can_ she?"
There were a few young men, only enough to help out on the singing, and
they remained mainly in the kitchen where they were seen occasionally in
anxious consultation with Deacon Williams.
The girls looked serious, but a little sly, as if they could smile if
the boys looked their way or if one of the old women should cough her
store teeth out.
Upstairs the family were seated in solemn silence, the two nieces, Emma
and Sarah, and Emma's husband, Harkey, and Sarah's children--deceased
Williams had no wife. These people sat in stony immobility, except when
Harkey looked at his watch, and said:--
"Seem slow gitten here."
Occasionally women came up the stairway and flung themselves upon the
necks of the mourning nieces, who submitted to it without apparent
disgust or astonishment, and sank back into the same icy calm after
their visitors had "straightened their things," and retired to the
reserved seats below.
Deacon Williams, small, quick, with sunny blue-gray eyes belying the
gloomy curve of his mouth, was everywhere; arranging for bearers,
selecting hymns, conferring with the family, keeping abstracted old
women off the seats reserved for the mourners, and maintaining an
anxious lookout for the minister.
The Deacon was a distant relative of the dead man, and it was generally
admitted that he "would have a time of it" in administering upon the
estate.
At last the word was whispered about that the Elder was coming. Word was
sent to the smoke-house and to the haystack to call the stragglers in.
They came slowly, and finding the rooms all filled considered themselves
absolved from a disagreeable duty, and went back to the sunny side of
the haystack, where they smoked their pipes in ruminative enjoyment.
The Elder, upon entering, took his place beside the coffin, the foot of
which he used for a pulpit on which to lay his Bible and his hymn-book.
A noise of whispering, rustling, scraping of feet arose as some old men
crowded in among the women, and then the room became silent.
The Elder took his seat and glanced round upon them all with solemn
unrecognizing severity, while the mourners came down the creaking pine
stairway in proper order of procedure.
Everybody noticed the luxury of new dresses on the nieces and the new
suits on the children. Everybody knew the feeling which led to these
extravagances. Death, after all, was a majestic visitor, and money was
not to stand in the way of a decent showing. Some of the girls smiled
slyly at Isaac's gloves, which were too small and would go only halfway
on, a fact he tried to conceal by keeping his hands folded. Each boy was
provided with a large new stiff cotton handkerchief, which occupied
immense space in outside pockets, crumpled as they were into a rustling
ball with cruel salient angles like a Chinese puzzle.
The Elder had attended two funerals that week, and like a jaded actor
came lamely to his work. His prayer was not entirely satisfactory to the
older people, they had expected a "little more power."
He was a thin-faced man, with weak brown eyes and a mouth like a gopher,
that is, with very prominent upper teeth. His black coat was worn and
shiny, and hung limply, as if at some other period he had been fatter,
or as if it had belonged to some other man.
The choir with instinctive skill had selected a wailing hymn, only
slightly higher in development than the chant of the Indians, sweet,
plaintive at times, barbaric in its moving cadences. They sang it well,
in meditative march, looking out of the windows during its interminable
length.
Then the Elder read some passages of the Scripture in his "funeral
voice," which was entirely different from his "marriage voice" and his
"Sunday voice." It had deep cadences in it and chanting inflections, not
unlike the negro preachers or the keeners at Irish wakes.
Then he gave out the hymn, which all joined in singing, rising to their
feet with much trouble. After they had settled down again he took out a
large carefully ironed handkerchief and laid it on the coffin as who
should say, "If you have tears, prepare to shed them now."
The absurdity of all this did not appear to his listeners, though they
well knew he cared very little about the dead man, who was a very
retiring person.
The Elder on his part understood that his audience was before him for
the pleasure of weeping, for the delight of seeing agonized faces and
hearing wild grief-laden wailing. They were there to feel the delicious
creeping thrill of horror and fear, roused by the presence of the corpse
and the near shadow of the hovering angel of death.
The Elder led off by some purely perfunctory remarks about the deceased,
about his kindness, and his honesty. This caused the nieces to wipe away
a sparse tear or two, and he was encouraged as if by slight applause. He
developed as usual the idea that in the midst of life we are in death,
that no man can tell when his time will come. He told two or three
grewsome stories of sudden death. His voice now rose in a wild chant now
sank to a hoarse whisper.
The blowing of noses, low sobbings, and fervent amens from the old men
thickened encouragingly, and he entered upon more impassioned flights.
His voice, naturally sonorous, deepened in powerful song till the men
seated comfortably on their haunches out by the haystack could plainly
hear his words. "Oh, my brethren, what will you do in that last day?"
Sarah's boys, without in the least understanding what it all meant,
began to weep also and to use their handkerchiefs, so smooth and shining
they were useless as so much legal-cap writing paper.
Their misery would have been enhanced had they known that out in the
wagon-shed under cover of the Elder's voice the other boys were having a
game of mummelly peg in the warm, dry ground. Their fresh young souls
laughed at death as the early robins out in the hedge near by defied the
winds of March.
Having harrowed the poor sensation-loving souls as thoroughly as could
be desired, the Elder began the process of "letting them down easy." He
remembered that the Lord was merciful; that the deceased could approach
him with confidence; that there was a life beyond the tomb, a life of
eternal rest (the allurement of all hard-working humanity).
Slowly the snuffling and sobbing ceased, the handkerchiefs took longer
and longer intervals of rest, and when in conclusion the preacher said,
"Let us pray," the old men looked at each other with fervent
satisfaction. "It's been a blessed time--a blessed time!"
The pretty girl who sang the soprano looked very interesting with her
wet eyelashes, the tears stopped halfway in their course down her
rounded cheek. The closing hymn promised endless peace and rest, but was
voiced in the same tragic and hopeless music with which the service
opened.
Deacon Williams came out to say, "All parties desiring to view the
_remains_, will now have an opportunity." He had the hospitable tone of
a host inviting his guests in to dinner.
Viewing the remains was considered a religious duty, and the men from
outside, and even the boys from behind the smoke-house, felt constrained
to come in and pass in shuddering horror before the still face whose
breath did not dim the glass above it. Most of them hurried by the box
with only a swift side glance down at the strange thing within.
Then the bearers lifted the coffin and slipped it into the
platform-spring wagon, which was backed up to the door. The other teams
loaded up, and the procession moved off, down the perilously muddy road
toward the village burying-ground.
In this way was John Williams, a hard-working, honorable Welshman,
buried. His death furnished forth a sombre, dramatic entertainment such
as he himself had ceremoniously attended many times. The funeral
trotters whom he had seen at every funeral in the valley were now in at
his death, and would be at each other's death, until the black and
yellow earth claimed them all.
A ceremony almost as interesting to the gossips as the burial was the
reading of the will, to which only the family were invited. After the
return of Emma, her husband, and Sarah from the cemetery, Deacon
Williams read the dead man's bequests, seated in the best room, which
was still littered with chairs and damp with mud.
The will was simple and not a surprise to any one. It gave equal
division of all the property to the nieces.
"Well, now, when'll we have the settlement?" asked the Deacon.
"Just's you say, Deacon," said Emma, meekly.
"Suit yourself," said Harkey; "only it 'ad better come soon. Sooner the
better--seedin's coming on."
"Well, to-morrow is Friday, why not Saturday?"
"All right, Saturday." All agreed.
As Harkey drove off down the road he said to his wife: "The sooner we
have it, the fewer things 'll git carried off. The Deacon don't favor me
none, and Bill Gray is sweet on Serry, and he'll bear watchin'."
The Deacon on his part took his chin in his fist and looked after
Harkey. "Seemed a little bit anxious, 'cordin' to _my_ notion," he said,
with a smile.