THE BURYING-GROUND
Directly in the shelter of the church was the burying-ground. It had
first been laid out at the corner of the road, on one side of the great
building; but slowly and surely it crept around behind the sheds where
the horses were hitched during the Sunday services, and then still
farther on to the other side. The first part of the yard was almost
filled with little mounds and leaning stones, and most of its silent
tenants were forgotten by all save a few old people who lingered far
beyond the natural term of life. The new yard, as we called it, was in
every way more pretentious than the old; the headstones were higher, the
grass was greener, the mounds were more regular, and the trees and
shrubs were better kept. The bones of many of the dead aristocracy had
been dug up out of the old yard by their proud relatives, and carefully
laid in the new, where they might rest in the same exclusive
surroundings in which they lived while still upon the earth.
As a child, these graveyards had no definite meaning to me, but I never
went by them after nightfall if I could possibly go any other way,
especially if I chanced to be alone. If I could not avoid going this
way, I always kept well to the other side of the road, and walked or ran
as fast as I could, with scarcely a glance toward the silent yard and
the white stones that gleamed so grimly in the dusk. Sometimes a number
of us boys would go through the yard in broad daylight, but even then we
preferred almost any other spot.
I cannot recall when a sense of the real meaning of a churchyard came
full upon me. I have no doubt that I unconsciously felt the gloom of the
place before I fully understood what it really meant.
In the summer-time we children were usually taken through the graveyard
on our way home from church; but after the long services even this
seemed a pleasant spot. On Sunday we were not afraid, for all the
worshippers went home this way.
The yards were filled with evergreen trees carefully trimmed and
clipped, with here and there a weeping-willow drooping its doleful
branches to the ground. Why these trees were chosen for the churchyard,
I cannot tell; but I have never since seen an evergreen or a
weeping-willow that did not take me back to that little spot. The
footpaths wound in and out, and ran off in all directions to reach each
separate plat of ground that the thrifty neighbors had set apart as the
final resting-place which would be theirs until the resurrection came.
Most of them firmly believed in this great day,—or at least they told
themselves they did. Around the yard was a neat white fence, always kept
in good repair; and the gates were carefully locked except on the
Sabbath day. Many times I saw the old sexton wait until the last mourner
had slowly left the yard, and then carefully lock the gate and go away.
It seemed to me as if he were locking the gate to keep his silent
tenants in, like a jailer who turns the bolts upon the prisoners in
their cells.
As a little child, I used to look at the sexton half in awe, and I
almost feared to come into his uncanny presence. I never could think
that he was quite like other men, or else he could not shovel the dirt
so carelessly into the open grave. I had never seen anyone but the old
sexton fill the grave and smooth the little mound that was always made
from the dirt that was left over after the coffin was put down; and I
used to wonder, in my childish way, how the sexton himself would get
buried when he was dead.
The church and the graveyard were closely associated in my mind. It
seemed to me, as a little child, that the church had full jurisdiction
of the yard, and that the care and protection of the graves and their
mouldering tenants were the chief reasons why the church was there. The
great bell tolled slowly and mournfully at each death, and we counted
the solemn strokes to know the age of the hapless one whose turn had
come. Sometimes we could even guess who had died, from the number of
times it struck; but even these strokes did not impress me much. Almost
always the number was very great. I could not see any connection between
these old people and myself; and, besides, I felt that if the time could
ever come when I had grown so old, I would have lived far beyond an age
when there was any joy in life. On the day of the funeral, too, the bell
commenced to toll when the hearse came into view from the church and
began its slow journey up the hill, and it did not cease until the last
carriage was inside the yard. The importance of the dead could always be
told by the length of time the old bell rang while the procession
crawled up the hill. We used to compare these processions, and dispute
as to who had the longest funeral; but after old Squire Allen’s turn had
come, there was no longer any doubt. As I grew older, and began to give
rein to my ambitions and dreams, I hoped and rather believed that in the
far-off years I might have a longer procession than the one that had
followed him to the little yard, but of late years I have rather lost
interest in this old ambition.
At almost every mound stood a white marble slab, and sometimes there was
a grand and pretentious monument in the centre of the lot. When I was
very young, I thought that those who had the finest monuments were the
ones most loved and mourned. It was long before I realized that even the
barred gates of a graveyard could not keep vanity outside. I often heard
the neighbors talk about these stones. Sometimes they said it was
strange that Farmer Smith could not show enough respect for his wife to
put up a finer gravestone. Again, they said that it would have been
better if Farmer Brown had been kinder to his wife while she lived, than
to have put up such a grand monument after she was dead.
We boys sometimes went through the yard to pick out the slabs we liked
the best; these were always the tallest and the largest ones. We
carefully read the inscriptions on these stones, and never for a moment
doubted a word they said, any more than we doubted Holy Writ. All the
inscriptions told of the virtues of the dead, and generally were helped
out by a Scriptural text. In the case of children the stone was usually
ornamented with a lamb or a dove, which we thought wonderful and fine.
Sometimes an angel in the form of a woman was coming down from the
clouds to take a happy child away to heaven. I cannot recall that I saw
any angels in the forms of men, though why all the angels were women I
did not know then, nor, for that matter, do I know now.
I think the first time my faith was shaken in anything I saw on a
gravestone was one day when I chanced upon a brand-new slab erected to
the memory of the town drunkard by his “loving wife and children.” The
inscription said that the deceased was a kind and loving husband and a
most indulgent father. Everyone in Farmington knew that the wife had
often called in the constable to protect her from the husband; but still
here was the stone. Yet, after all, the inscription may not have been
untrue; indeed, it may have been more truthful than those that rested
above many a man and woman who had lived and died without reproach.
Even in the churchyard we boys knew which were the favored spots. We
understood that the broad thoroughfares where carriages could drive were
taken by the richest people of the town, and that the mounds away off at
one side and reached only by narrow footpaths were for the poorer and
humbler folk. I always hoped I might be buried where the teams could
pass; it seemed as if I should be lonely away on the outskirts where no
one ever came along.
Even when quite young, I could not help noticing how many graves were at
first planted with flowers and decked and kept with the greatest care,
and how soon the rosebushes were broken and the weeds and grass grew
rank and high upon the mound. Everyone thought this a shame; and I
thought so too. But that is not so clear to me to-day as it was then. I
have rather come to think it fortunate that Nature, through time and
change, heals the sore wounds and dulls the cruel memories of the past.
When I had grown old enough to go to the Academy on the hill, we boys
had a playground just at the edge of the graveyard. Sometimes the
strongest hitter would knock the ball clear over to the newest mounds
that were slowly encroaching on our domain. When it was my turn to chase
the ball, I always got it as quickly as I could, and ran away, for even
this momentary intrusion of the dead into our games left an uneasy
feeling in my mind.
The last time I was in Farmington I once more went inside the old
graveyard; somehow it had a nearer and more personal meaning to me than
it ever had before. In those far-off days the churchyard was only a
casual thought that flitted now and then like a shadow through my
mind,—never with much personal relation to myself, but more in
connection with my father or mother, or with some old neighbor whom I
knew and loved; but I find that more and more, as we grow older, the
thought of churchyards becomes familiar to our lives and brings a
personal meaning of which childhood cannot know.
Farmington itself, when I last saw it, had not much changed except to
grow older and more deserted than when I was young. Some of the shops
and stores were vacant, and many of the people had gone to more
prosperous towns; but the churchyard had grown larger with the passing
years. The old part was well-nigh forgotten, but the new yard had
stretched out until it quite covered the field where we used to chase
the ball, and had then slowly crept off over a ravine farther back, and
was climbing on up the hill. I wandered for a while around the winding
paths, and read again the inscriptions on the leaning stones; these had
a meaning that I never felt before. When I read the ages of the dead, I
found many a stone that told of fewer years than those that I could
boast, and in the newer part I spelled out the names of some of those
little white-haired boys that once skipped along the winding path with
me without the slightest thought that they so soon would be sleeping
with the rest.