John Donner soon saw what the people waited for. They were watching old Mike, a black ribbon tied to his bridle. He stood hitched to Pap-pa’s buggy in front of the hearse. He had turned his head now to watch the pallbearers bring out the long yellow coffin and load it on the hearse. Afterward, Morris Striker said the old horse started off on his own with the empty buggy. Morriswas supposed to lead him by the bridle, but he merely walked beside him, and Mike led the procession, turning up Cemetery Road from Kronos Street without guidance. Ma always said she had never heard Mike neigh from the stable again.
The foot procession formed quickly now, two by two, flowing in a human stream, at first beside the carriages, then swinging out into the middle of the street behind, a long, winding, almost endless tail of Union Vale humanity. Walking along with it, John Donner remembered what his cousin Georgia, who spent most of her life in Europe, had told him. “I always said I wanted to be in London when Queen Victoria died and in Unionville when Mr. Morgan died, and I had to be in Italy both times.”
By the time the old man got up the hill, the press was so great around the grave he couldn’t get near. Once or twice the breeze brought a snatch of familiar words, “I would not have ye ignorant, brethren,” “In the evening it is cut down and withereth,” and “O death, where is thy sting?”, then the wail of the choir, who in those days marched summer and winter up the hill to raise their voices over the grave without benefit of organ or pay, sending the traveler with hymn and lament to the other shore. It was more pagan than herealized, John Donner told himself, closer to the Greeks. As a youth he had thought it criminal to torment the bereaved with mournful words and dirges. The feeble efforts to disguise evil with the words, “Asleep” and “At rest,” carved serenely over pits of corruption had angered him. Now that he was older he wondered if he might not have been too thin-skinned and refined. If you had friends and neighbors to climb the hill and raise well-meant words over you at last, why should you prefer paid strangers consigning you to earth or fire?
He saw finally that the services were over, the multitude dispersing, life withdrawing to its warren, leaving the dead to the dead. Until the crowd was gone, he wandered among the narrow lands of the departed, noting long-forgotten names and the oft-chiseled melancholy words, “Father,” “Mother” and “Our Darling,” far from home and warm bed in this chill stony place. The phrase “He is not here but risen” aroused in him as always an inner rebellion. “Just the same, God,” he spoke grimly, half aloud, “Thou hast missed a wonderful bet if it isn’t true.” What he meant was that the Infinite had overlooked a chance to delight itself and confound the wisest of men by showing them how littlethey knew, how man was a great deal more than he guessed and creation far beyond any sensible and reasonable conception.
Wasn’t it curious that now at this gloomy time he should think of some of his grandfather’s funeral stories, especially the one about Manny Keefer, typically Pennsylvania Dutch. He told Pap-pa that when he died he wanted to be buried north and south instead of east and west like everybody else in the cemetery. He didn’t want to have to get awake and sit up to see the sun shine in his face on resurrection morn. He would sooner sleep. That was something he had never had enough of. For thirty years he had had to get up at three o’clock in the morning and walk four miles to town to catch the early miners’ train. He was tired and if resurrection came before he got rested, he’d be “grichlich.” It was a long entertaining story full of Manny’s talk together with what his wife said and what Pap-pa and the grave digger said. John Donner seemed to see and hear his grandfather telling it now with his unreadable face and those
The foot procession formed quickly now, two by two, flowing in a human stream, at first beside the carriages, then swinging out into the middle of the street behind, a long, winding, almost endless tail of Union Vale humanity. Walking along with it, John Donner remembered what his cousin Georgia, who spent most of her life in Europe, had told him. “I always said I wanted to be in London when Queen Victoria died and in Unionville when Mr. Morgan died, and I had to be in Italy both times.”
By the time the old man got up the hill, the press was so great around the grave he couldn’t get near. Once or twice the breeze brought a snatch of familiar words, “I would not have ye ignorant, brethren,” “In the evening it is cut down and withereth,” and “O death, where is thy sting?”, then the wail of the choir, who in those days marched summer and winter up the hill to raise their voices over the grave without benefit of organ or pay, sending the traveler with hymn and lament to the other shore. It was more pagan than herealized, John Donner told himself, closer to the Greeks. As a youth he had thought it criminal to torment the bereaved with mournful words and dirges. The feeble efforts to disguise evil with the words, “Asleep” and “At rest,” carved serenely over pits of corruption had angered him. Now that he was older he wondered if he might not have been too thin-skinned and refined. If you had friends and neighbors to climb the hill and raise well-meant words over you at last, why should you prefer paid strangers consigning you to earth or fire?
He saw finally that the services were over, the multitude dispersing, life withdrawing to its warren, leaving the dead to the dead. Until the crowd was gone, he wandered among the narrow lands of the departed, noting long-forgotten names and the oft-chiseled melancholy words, “Father,” “Mother” and “Our Darling,” far from home and warm bed in this chill stony place. The phrase “He is not here but risen” aroused in him as always an inner rebellion. “Just the same, God,” he spoke grimly, half aloud, “Thou hast missed a wonderful bet if it isn’t true.” What he meant was that the Infinite had overlooked a chance to delight itself and confound the wisest of men by showing them how littlethey knew, how man was a great deal more than he guessed and creation far beyond any sensible and reasonable conception.
Wasn’t it curious that now at this gloomy time he should think of some of his grandfather’s funeral stories, especially the one about Manny Keefer, typically Pennsylvania Dutch. He told Pap-pa that when he died he wanted to be buried north and south instead of east and west like everybody else in the cemetery. He didn’t want to have to get awake and sit up to see the sun shine in his face on resurrection morn. He would sooner sleep. That was something he had never had enough of. For thirty years he had had to get up at three o’clock in the morning and walk four miles to town to catch the early miners’ train. He was tired and if resurrection came before he got rested, he’d be “grichlich.” It was a long entertaining story full of Manny’s talk together with what his wife said and what Pap-pa and the grave digger said. John Donner seemed to see and hear his grandfather telling it now with his unreadable face and those
Similar Books
