on him.
"Don't know enough to come in out of the rain," Mr. Reisinger said over the noise of the windshield wipers. He shook his head, then reached under the seat and pulled out a roll of paper towels, which he passed back.
"We get enough done?" Harrison asked.
Mr. Reisinger was a professional gardener who had contracts to take care of several dozen of die newer graves, so he'd be very fussy about the cleanup the scouts had done. But he said, "Probably," and Harrison leaned back in his seat.
"You smell like a wet dog," Spense complained, friendly as always.
Harrison gazed out the window as they approached the stone-and-iron gate. How pretty the trees looked, their leaves still fresh and new, the trunks and branches stained dark by the rain, with the dramatically gray clouds as backdrop. Robert Delano Adams and Eulalia Meinyk. He wondered which one the woman had been crying for.
The next day, Monday, Harrison was riding his bike home from school and decided to cut through the cemetery.
We did a good job,
he told himself, but then he rounded a comer and saw that somebody had lopped the heads off all the tulips Mr. Reisinger had planted over Mrs. Reisinger's grave. In fact, for the entire length of this row, wreaths were knocked off their stands, ivy and geraniums were trampled. When Harrison got off the bike and walked around to the other side, he saw that someone had used a red felt-tip marker to deface the fronts of the headstones. A few had obscene messages scrawled on them, but many simply had a line drawn through the names, as though the vandals had simply held the marker out when they strolled past.
Stupid, senseless malice. And this was just the kind of thing Mr. Reisinger had complained the police were useless for. They'd take the report—they always took a report—but they weren't interested unless there was dramatic breakage. Angrily Harrison got out the linen handkerchief his mother always tucked into his backpack and spat on it. On his knees he scrubbed at Mrs. Reisinger's headstone—one of the ones that was simply scribbled on. The ink came off the smooth surface easily, but he had to scrape it out of the engraved areas of the letters.
Finished, he sat back on his heels. On the grave to the left, someone had covered the inscription MOTHER with a particularly crude word. The grave was not one of the ones Mr. Reisinger was responsible for, but it was a recent grave and had been well tended. Now the urn with fresh flowers was overturned. Harrison could just picture this poor woman's husband and children coming with some new flowers this weekend and seeing that obscenity. With a sigh he began scrubbing at the word.
Three hours later he'd scrubbed clean all the gravestones with actual words on them. The knees of his school pants were filthy, and his hands were too sore to do any more.
Sorry,
he thought to the others.
The scents of crushed flowers and damp earth heated by the sun mingled and hung heavily about him.
What is the matter with me?
he thought. He'd just spent all afternoon cleaning gravestones for people he didn't even know, who wouldn't even be aware of what he'd done, who might not even care. And for what? He was late for dinner, which always made his mother crazy; he'd missed die chance to go to the library to research his science paper, which was due tomorrow; and he still had to pick up a snack for the scout
meeting
tonight.
Harrison jammed what was left of the handkerchief into his pocket, unsure whether he was more sad or angry.
Somehow, despite all the times he had been here, he missed the turnoff to the exit. He was pedaling past the reconstructed Victorian gazebo before he realized he was in the old section. Rather than backtrack, he kept going. The road circled around, anyway, and came out near the old chapel. There was the grave of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. On the other side of that hill were buried the poor nameless children who had died in the turn-of-the-century orphanage
"Don't know enough to come in out of the rain," Mr. Reisinger said over the noise of the windshield wipers. He shook his head, then reached under the seat and pulled out a roll of paper towels, which he passed back.
"We get enough done?" Harrison asked.
Mr. Reisinger was a professional gardener who had contracts to take care of several dozen of die newer graves, so he'd be very fussy about the cleanup the scouts had done. But he said, "Probably," and Harrison leaned back in his seat.
"You smell like a wet dog," Spense complained, friendly as always.
Harrison gazed out the window as they approached the stone-and-iron gate. How pretty the trees looked, their leaves still fresh and new, the trunks and branches stained dark by the rain, with the dramatically gray clouds as backdrop. Robert Delano Adams and Eulalia Meinyk. He wondered which one the woman had been crying for.
The next day, Monday, Harrison was riding his bike home from school and decided to cut through the cemetery.
We did a good job,
he told himself, but then he rounded a comer and saw that somebody had lopped the heads off all the tulips Mr. Reisinger had planted over Mrs. Reisinger's grave. In fact, for the entire length of this row, wreaths were knocked off their stands, ivy and geraniums were trampled. When Harrison got off the bike and walked around to the other side, he saw that someone had used a red felt-tip marker to deface the fronts of the headstones. A few had obscene messages scrawled on them, but many simply had a line drawn through the names, as though the vandals had simply held the marker out when they strolled past.
Stupid, senseless malice. And this was just the kind of thing Mr. Reisinger had complained the police were useless for. They'd take the report—they always took a report—but they weren't interested unless there was dramatic breakage. Angrily Harrison got out the linen handkerchief his mother always tucked into his backpack and spat on it. On his knees he scrubbed at Mrs. Reisinger's headstone—one of the ones that was simply scribbled on. The ink came off the smooth surface easily, but he had to scrape it out of the engraved areas of the letters.
Finished, he sat back on his heels. On the grave to the left, someone had covered the inscription MOTHER with a particularly crude word. The grave was not one of the ones Mr. Reisinger was responsible for, but it was a recent grave and had been well tended. Now the urn with fresh flowers was overturned. Harrison could just picture this poor woman's husband and children coming with some new flowers this weekend and seeing that obscenity. With a sigh he began scrubbing at the word.
Three hours later he'd scrubbed clean all the gravestones with actual words on them. The knees of his school pants were filthy, and his hands were too sore to do any more.
Sorry,
he thought to the others.
The scents of crushed flowers and damp earth heated by the sun mingled and hung heavily about him.
What is the matter with me?
he thought. He'd just spent all afternoon cleaning gravestones for people he didn't even know, who wouldn't even be aware of what he'd done, who might not even care. And for what? He was late for dinner, which always made his mother crazy; he'd missed die chance to go to the library to research his science paper, which was due tomorrow; and he still had to pick up a snack for the scout
meeting
tonight.
Harrison jammed what was left of the handkerchief into his pocket, unsure whether he was more sad or angry.
Somehow, despite all the times he had been here, he missed the turnoff to the exit. He was pedaling past the reconstructed Victorian gazebo before he realized he was in the old section. Rather than backtrack, he kept going. The road circled around, anyway, and came out near the old chapel. There was the grave of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. On the other side of that hill were buried the poor nameless children who had died in the turn-of-the-century orphanage
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