Once you evidence even the slightest respect of a superstition in the
Blue Ridge Country there is ever a firm believer eager to show proof of
the like beyond all doubt. It was so with Widow Plater as we sat by the
flickering light of the little oil lamp in her timeworn cabin that
looked down on the Shenandoah Valley.
"I want to show you Josephus's crown," she said in a hushed voice. Going
to the bureau she opened the top drawer, bringing out what appeared to
be a plate wrapped in muslin. She placed it on the stand table beside
the lamp and carefully laid back the covering, revealing a matted circle
of feathers about the size of the human head. The circle was about two
inches thick and a finger length in width. Strangely enough the feathers
were all running the same way and were so closely matted together they
did not pull apart even under pressure of the widow's firm hand, she
showed with much satisfaction. "Can't no one pull asunder a body's death
crown," she said with firm conviction.
Resuming her chair she went on with the story. "All of six months my
husband, Josephus, poor soul, lay sick with his poor head resting on the
same pillow day in and day out. I'd come to know he was on his death
bed," she said resignedly, "for one day when I smoothed a hand over his
pillow I felt there his crown a-forming inside the ticking. I'd felt the
crown with my own hands and I knew death was hovering over my man.
Though I didn't tell him so. I wanted he should not be troubled, that he
should die a peaceable death and he did. When we laid him out we put the
pillow under his head and when we laid him away I opened the pillow and
took out his crown that I knew to be there all of six months before he
breathed his last." She sighed deeply. "It's not everyone that has a
crown"--there was wistful pride in her voice--"and them that has, they
do say, is sure of another up yonder." The Widow Plater lifted
tear-dimmed eyes heavenward. "And what's more, it is the bounden duty of
them that's left to keep the crown of their dead to their own dying day.
Josephus's death crown I'll pass on to my oldest daughter when my time
comes."
Carefully she folded the matted circle of feathers in its muslin
covering and reverently replaced it in the bureau drawer.