A SPRING MORNING--AND A PAUPER BURIAL.
Not here--not here with our lovely dead--
Oh, give one spot of sacred earth!
Where the grass may wave, above her head,
And the sweet, wild flowers have holy birth.
Oh, grant our prayer--our solemn prayer--
A lonely grave--and fresh, green sod--
There is earth around us everywhere;
And the mother earth belongs to God.
A long heavy boat lay at the Bellevue wharf. In the bow sat half a
dozen paupers, who started up now and then to range the coffins that
came in wheelbarrow loads from a little brick building near the wharf.
A name was marked rudely in chalk upon the lid of each coffin, and
this was all that those who brought them knew or cared about the
senseless forms they carried. Out from that brick house, and along the
wharf, they were trundled amid a swarm of loungers, who helped eagerly
to lower them into the boat.
It was the harvest time of death at Bellevue, and those pine coffins
were garnered by tens and twenties each day. That morning the weight
of twenty-four human forms, all breathing souls fifteen hours before,
sunk that stout boat to the water's edge.
When the last coffin came alone upon the handbarrow, Crofts
accompanied it, followed by two little girls. With his own hands he
helped to lower that coffin into the boat, and those paupers who could
read saw Jane Chester's name chalked upon the lid. As Crofts settled
his burden gently down across an empty seat, a faint odor of flowers
stole through the crevices, and when the rude sail cloth was flung
carelessly over the rest, he laid a strip of clean, coarse linen over
this coffin, then clambering across to the man who sat with the helm
in his hand, he imparted some directions to him in a low voice.
"What, up to Randall's Island! Take those two children in the boat
there and back to the nurseries! It can't be done, I tell you," said
the man, sulkily. "I won't do it without the Superintendent's order,
nor then either, if I can help myself."
"Oh, let us go with her--pray take us!" cried Mary Fuller, who was
anxiously watching the man, while Isabel bent over the wharf, her
hands hanging down, and her eyes full of helpless woe.
The pauper captain neither heeded the pleading cry of Mary Fuller, or
the more touching look of the orphan--and to all the humane arguments
of Crofts he turned a deaf ear. At length Crofts found a means of
persuasion more potent than tears or words. He took from his pocket
four twists of coarse tobacco, which the captain received with a grin.
Hiding the treasure under his seat, he cast a sharp glance over the
pile of coffins to assure himself that the transfer had not been
observed by the men in the bow.
"Holloa, there, stop crying and jump in if you want to go!" cried the
man, addressing the children; "make room in the bow, will you--we have
got to leave these children at the nurseries as we come back."
Crofts lifted the little girls into the boat, sat them gently down in
the shadow of Mrs. Chester's coffin, and went back to the hospital.
"Give way, all hands!" cried the captain, seizing the helm. "Pull a
strong oar, boys, or the tide will turn agin us!"
Half a dozen oars splashed into the water as this command was given.
The boat moved slowly from the wharf, and wheeling through a narrow
inlet, shot heavily out with its freight of death, into the East
River.
Oh, what a change was there, from the dull and murky gloom of
Bellevue! Down upon the broad expanse of waters came the morning
sunshine. Rosy and golden it fell upon the waves, as they tossed and
rolled and dimpled to the soft spring breeze. Here a current of liquid
gold went eddying in and out, like the trail of a comet; there, lay
the smooth, calm surface, rosy with the young light, or blackened by
the shadow of an overhanging bank. Behind them lay New York city,
Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, the tall masts and steeples rising through
a sea of hazy gold, and belted with the silvery flash of the river.
The banks, on either side, were clothed with soft, vivid green, broken
with dog-wood trees in full flower, and maples in the first sweet
crimson of their foliage. The fragrance from these banks swept down
upon the water and trembled through the air.
All this seemed like the very atmosphere of paradise to those little
girls, after their dreary sojourn in the pestilential gloom of
Bellevue. They could not realize that the mother, the benefactress,
whose smile had been so sweet only a few days before, was really and
truly gone. She was there close by; their little hands could touch her
coffin; the scent of flowers stealing through its chinks, constantly
reminded them of the mournful truth; but, with everything so bright
and lovely around, they could not believe in the reality. The motion
of the boat--the melodious dip of the oars in the water--these things
were new and strange. There was nothing like death in it all save the
heap of coffins, and from them they shrank shuddering and appalled.
As the boat crept by Hurl Gate, a fearful change came over them. The
glorious beauty of nature conflicting with the gloom of death; the
frightful jokes of the crew; the boiling waters, leaping up only a few
yards off, in long glittering flashes, like banners of silver, torn
and weltering in the breeze; the sky bending over them deeply blue,
and flooded with pleasant sunshine; the ribald criticisms of those
coarse men, and the death-heap under which the sluggish boat toiled
through the waters--all these sharp contrasts were enough to have
unsettled the nerves of strong manhood. To those children, worn out
and heartbroken, it brought strange and fearful excitement. Their
hands were interlinked; a thrill of keen magnetic sympathy shot
through their frames. They looked at the bright water leaping and
flashing so near. A wild temptation came over them, to spring from the
shadow of that death-heap into the sparkling flood. This thrilling
desire assailed them both at once--their hands clung closer--their
eyes, a moment before so heavy and sad, gleamed with intense meaning.
They crept close to the side of the boat.
"We are alone--we are all alone in the wide, wide world," said Isabel,
in a low voice that thrilled through and through the heart that
listened.
Isabel leaned over the boat; she was gazing wistfully into the water.
"One spring, Mary, and we both have a home."
The child stood up, her foot was on the edge of the boat, her face was
turned toward Hurl Gate.
Mary Fuller started, as if from a wild dream, and flung her arms
around the half frenzied child, standing there upon the threshold of
a great crime.
"Isabel, oh, Isabel! can we leave _her_ here, all alone?"
The child turned her head, her foot was slowly withdrawn, and her eyes
sank to her mother's coffin. She fell into Mary's arms, and burst into
a wild passion of tears. Filled with the same terrible feelings, Mary
Fuller could scarcely restrain the wild sobs that broke to her lips.
She clung close to Isabel, and, cowering down in the boat, afraid to
trust themselves with another sight of the rushing waters that had so
tempted them, the little creatures remained motionless till they
reached Randall's Island.
All this passed before the stolid crew, and they did not know it, but
joked and jeered each other in the midst of death, as if their horrid
duties had been a pastime. These men were so used to the King of
Terrors, that his aspect had ceased to disturb them.
They landed on Randall's Island, a lovely spot at all seasons, but now
teaming with luxuriant beauty. The apple orchards were all in blossom.
The cherry and pear trees, white as if a snow-storm had drifted over
them. The oak groves were robed with delicate foliage, and a carpet of
young grass lay everywhere around. Again the contrast between nature
and that death-freight was more than painful.
Two or three men came down to the landing with wheelbarrows, and the
boat was disencumbered of its gloomy load. The little girls sat down
upon the shore, watching each load as it was trundled away. At length,
the men brought the coffin in which their hearts rested, and laid it
across a hand barrow. They arose silently, and followed it hand and
hand.
They turned into an orchard; the blossoming apple boughs drooped over
the coffin as it passed under them. A host of birds made the fragrant
air tremble with their songs. The single wheel of the hand-barrow
crushed hundreds of wild flowers down in the tender grass. Once more
it seemed like a dream to those young hearts. Surely, surely it could
not be her grave they were approaching through all this labyrinth of
blossoms!
All at once they came into an open space. The world of flowers was
left behind. Thickets and broken hillocks were on the right and left.
A sweep of green sward fell gently down to the water; here the turf
was torn up and mangled, and long deep ridges of fresh soil swept
downward toward the shore. Some were heaped high with fresh mould and
around them all the young grass lay trampled and dead. There was one
deep trench open half the way down, into which a man leaped, while the
others handed down the coffins ranged on either side the trench. With
their hands clinging together, the children crept close to the brink
of the abyss and looked down. One low cry and, in pale silence, they
recoiled back to the coffin and sunk down by it, like twin flowers
broken at the stem.
An old man rose up from the trench, casting down his spade and dashing
the soil from his hands, rejoicing that his task was over for that
day; but his eyes fell upon the mournful group we have described.
"What, another yet!" he muttered, with sullen discontent, as he moved
forward. The little girls heard his approach and crept closer to the
coffin.
"Not there! oh, do not put her there!" cried Isabel, lifting her ashen
face to the man.
The pauper-sexton shook his head.
"This is always the way," he muttered, "when the friends are allowed
to come here, we are sure of trouble!"
"Is there no other place? oh, do not put her with all them!"
So pleaded Mary, rising to her feet, and taking hold of the old man's
garments.
"In all this island is there no room where one person can be buried
alone?"
"If you have a dollar to pay for the trouble--yes," answered the old
man, softened by her distress.
"A dollar!"
The child turned away in utter despondency. Where on the wide earth
was she to find a dollar? Isabel looked at her with mournful
solicitude. A dollar! she would have given her young life for that
little sum of money; but, alas! even her life would not procure so
much.
The old man stood gazing upon those little pale faces, the one so
beautiful, the other vivid and wild with intense feeling. His heart
was touched, and going back to the trench he took up his spade.
"Come and point out the place where you would like to have her buried,
and I will do the work for nothing," he said; "as likely as not my
little grandchildren will some day be crying over me for want of a
dollar."
The old man seemed like an angel to those little girls. They could not
speak from fullness of gratitude, but followed the grave digger back
towards the orchard. Here the earth was broken, and rendered uneven by
some fifty or sixty hillocks; some marked by a single pine board,
others without even this frail memorial by which the death-couch might
be traced.
On the outskirts of this humble burial-place they found a fragment of
rock, half buried in the rich turf, and overrun with wild flowers,
mingled with fresh young moss. An apple-tree sheltered this spot, and
a honeysuckle-vine had taken root in a cleft of the rock, around which
its young tendrils lay, covered with budding foliage.
The little girls pointed out this spot, and the old man kindly sent
them away, before he sunk his spade in the turf.
When his task was done he came toward them, wiping the drops from his
forehead. The sexton was poor, but out of the feeble strength left to
his old age, he had given something to alleviate distress greater than
his own. A consciousness of this made his voice peculiarly gentle, as
he called a man from the trench to aid in the humble funeral of Jane
Chester.
Again that coffin was borne beneath the sweeping boughs of the
orchard, and lowered into its solitary grave, amid the sweet breath of
their restless blossoms. The two children followed it with meek and
tearful gratitude. The horrors of the tomb seemed nothing to them now,
that the beloved form was secure of a quiet resting-place. The dread
of seeing her cast into that trench had swallowed up all minor
feelings. It seemed like leaving her there in a holy sleep, when the
old man led them from the grave. They knew that it was a sleep from
which their grief could never arouse her, but still they went away,
greatly comforted.
The last boat was ready to put off when these children reached the
shore. They sat down close together, without much apparent emotion.
Their energies were completely prostrated; they had lost, almost, the
power to suffer or to weep.
"We were ordered to leave you at the nurseries. Do you wish to go
there?" inquired the captain.
Isabel looked at him vacantly, and Mary answered,
"We do not know."
"Would you not rather go back to the city, or to Bellevue?" persisted
the man, determined to force them into conversation; but still the
child answered,
"We do not know."
This mild and passive sorrow was more touching than their worst agony
had been. They seemed like two wounded birds bleeding to death without
a struggle.