University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

So soon and so soundly did we rest after a weary
day, that when we were awakened by a loud hammering,
we supposed the night was gone, and the old
carpenter arisen to his daily labor. He had a candle
however, and I lay idly watching his movements,
and noting the various operations of planing
and shaping, till I became aware that his business
was none other than the framing of a last receptacle
for one of the tenants of the narrow house. I now
remembered, too, that it was Sunday morning.

“Are you really making a coffin?” I said, as if
such a work could be strange any where.

“Surely I am,” said the old man, “and for a
good neighbor too.”

“For whom, pray?”

“Seth Mallory, you know,—you saw him in
the evening,—he was the man that got hurt yesterday.”

“Mallory! he is dead then! and so soon—”

“No! I believe he wa'n't quite gone when they
came and brought me the measure. You know
they'll want to bury him pretty soon 'cause the
weather's so warm.”

The idea nearly curdled my blood. A coffin for
the still living husband and father! My thoughts
recurred to that agonized countenance, and its look
of manly care and love for the dear one she was
leaving.

“Is it possible his body was measured for the
grave while he was yet alive?”

“Oh, he was past knowing any thing, poor
fellow, and they got his woman out of the room
for a few minutes. You know, ma'am, such things
must be done, and the sooner the better,” said the
old man as he stooped over his work.

He himself had nearly reached the limit of
human life, and the few scattered hairs which still
remained on his temples shone like silver in the
light of the one dim candle; yet he wrought away
cheerily at the strong man's coffin, whistling occasionally
to himself as the ghastly object assumed the
proper shape. He might have personified Death
as he fashioned this emblem of mortality, but it
would have been Death in a mild and kind form.
And is not this Death's usual form? and why do
we ever picture him otherwise?

As much of the night was still to come, I tried
to turn away and forget the scene and its associations,
but it would not be. My eyes were fascinated
to the spot, and I lost not a step of the process.
A white lining was tacked to the sides, the cover
was shaped, and smoothed, and fitted and screwed
home; and to my excited mind, the body, still

warm with scarce departed life, was pressed within
these dark and narrow bounds. Why are we
trained from infancy to such gloomy and terrifying
views of all that belongs to this universal and inevitable
change?

Day dawned before the work was finished, and
the old man, carefully extinguishing his candle and
setting open the door, put the last touches to it by
the cold gray light of morning. He stained the
whitewood with some reddish composition, and
then, after turning it in every direction and surveying
it with a look of professional complacency, set
it up against the outside of the house to dry in the
beams of the rising sun.

We were at breakfast when two young men
came for the coffin.

“What time did he die?” asked the old man.

“He breathed till about midnight, but he never
spoke after dark.”

“Ay!” said the old lady, “I thought he would
die about the turn of the tide. When do they bury
him?”

“This afternoon, after meeting.”

This strange custom obtains here, almost universally.
A dead body is seldom kept in the house
more than one night, and sometimes not even one.
More especially if an opportunity occurs to bury
the dead on Sunday is the last rite hastened; since
the presence of a minister of religion, and a day of
leisure and of best clothes, are all convenient.

Such haste seems more excusable under such circumstances,
when we consider the condition and
habits of the country, but there are cases where it
looks like an indecent or a superstitious haste to
get rid of a painful object. The superstitious feeling
is not, perhaps, very common; but there are
some who are, as they say, “afraid” of the bodies
of their nearest friends. This is generally found,
if at all, in young people; and it arises probably
from their having been bred in neighborhoods so
far scattered that deaths were very infrequent, and
so came seldom under their notice. I have seen a
young woman who did not dare approach the corpse
of her husband unless somebody went with her
and remained close at her side.

The meeting of that day was held in a large barn
at some miles' distance. It was a quarterly meeting
of one of the sects most numerous in this country,
and great numbers attended from every direction.
The central part or “bay” of the barn was filled
with seats of rough boards, and a long seat for the
preachers was enclosed after the same style. The
place was crowded to such a degree, that even
after many men and boys had perched themselves
on beams and other out of the way places, there
were still numbers who remained in their wagons,
drawn up as near as might be, so as to be able to
hear all that was said. And this was not difficult,
for in most cases the speakers, who were seven

in number, exerted their lungs to a degree that I
had seldom heard equalled.

In spite of many unpleasant circumstances naturally
inseparable from a gathering of this kind, the
scene was a very impressive one. The greatest
attention prevailed, and there was an air of reverence
and devotion which is not always the attendant
on the long-drawn aisle and the solemn organ. The
speakers adverted more than once to the circumstances
of our Savior's birth; and indeed nothing
could be more natural than the connection which
brought that humble yet glorious scene to mind.
It was needless then to warn us against despising
our place of meeting. The idea had already consecrated
it to purposes of worship.

The preachers all spoke in turn, but of course
each briefly. Prayer and singing came between
these short sermons, the singing seeming spontaneous,
as no hymns were given out. One of the
ministers would begin singing without any previous
notice, and as if taking it for granted that
every body would be able to join, as indeed many
did, forming a choral swell of wild and solemn
melody. The sacrament followed, and it was
administered and received with much appearance
of earnest devotion. Ere yet the holy rite was
finished, the body of the unfortunate Mallory, and
with it his weeping wife and her bereaved children,
were all in the midst before we were aware. The

coffin was placed on trestles before the preacher's
desk, and after the communion, one of the ministers,
one who had been long a neighbor of the deceased,
pronounced a funeral sermon,—unpremeditated of
course,—but who could lack most touching topics
of instruction on such an occasion as this?

Funeral hymns were now sung, and prayers offered
for the afflicted family; and then the whole
multitude followed the corpse in solemn procession
to the burial-place. This was a sweet, lonely spot,
enclosed, even in the heart of the wilderness,
with pious care. There were many tall trees left
standing, and beneath them a few graves marked
only by a piece of wood at the head and feet. In
silence was the dust committed to its kindred dust,
—in silence, if we except many a sob,—and when
all was done, a venerable old man, in the name of
the family, thanked friends and neighbors for their
aid and sympathy, and with a bow of his silvery
head, dismissed the assembly.