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 123come 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 124ever 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 125realized 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.