"What's them?" asked Phœbe.
"The verses on the tombstones. Here is one"—she read the inscription on the base of a narrow gray stone—"'After life's fitful fever she sleeps well.'"
"Ach," Aunt Maria said tartly, "I guess her man knowed why he put that on. That poor woman had three husbands and eleven children, so I guess she had fitful fever enough."
Phœbe laughed loud as she saw the smile on the face of her teacher, but next moment she sobered under the chiding of Aunt Maria. "Phœbe, now you keep quiet! Abody don't laugh and act so on a graveyard!"
"Ugh," the child said a moment later, "Miss Lee, just read this one. It always gives me shivers when I read it still.
"'Remember, man, as you pass by,
What you are now that once was I.
What I am now that you will be;
Prepare for death and follow me.'"
"That is rather startling," said Miss Lee.
Phœbe smiled and asked, "Don't you think this is a pretty graveyard?"
"Yes. How well cared for the graves are. Not a weed on most of them."
"Well," Aunt Maria explained, "the people who have dead here mostly take care of the graves. We come up every two weeks or so and sometimes we bring a hoe and fix our graves up nice and even. But some people are too lazy to keep the graves clean. I hoed some pig-ears out a few graves last week; I was ashamed of 'em, even if the graves didn't belong to us."