When Life Was Young: At the Old Farm in Maine

by C. A. Stephens

Toward noon, however, word was sent us that the husband of a cousin of the Old Squire's who resided in the town adjoining, to the eastward, had suddenly died, and that the funeral was to be at two o'clock that afternoon.

No one of the family seemed much disposed to attend it. It appeared that the deceased had not been a highly respected citizen. It was said that he had died from the effects of a fit of intoxication. The liquor which drunkards were able to obtain, by hook or crook, at that period and in spite of the Prohibitory Law, was of a peculiarly deleterious character.

At dinner the Old Squire remarked that he should attend the funeral, and that I could go with him, if I liked, but that the others might be excused. I at once accepted the invitation; almost anything was preferable to hoeing corn in the hot sun.

It was a pleasant ride of eight miles along the county road to the northeastward. We first passed numerous farms, then a "mud pond" and a "clear water pond," following afterwards the valley of a small river between two high, wooded mountains, till we came at last to a saw-mill, grist-mill and a few houses at a place whimsically known as the "city." Here in a little weathered house the last rites and services to the deceased were held. Elder Witham, still in his duster, preached a short discourse during which I felt somewhat distressed to hear him express certain doubts as to the man's future state. The Elder was a thoroughly upright Yankee and Methodist, who tried to preach the truth and the gospel, as he apprehended it; he did not believe that all a person's faults are, or ought to be, forgiven at his death. I remember the following words which he made use of on that occasion, for they appealed to some nascent sense of logic in me, I suppose: "The evil which men do in this life lives on in the world after they die; and even so the just penalty for it continues with them in a future state."

The Old Squire, although ordinarily a kind and reasonable man, yet possessed some of the same severe traits of character, which have descended in the sons of New England, from the days of the Puritans. I remember that he said, as we drove along the road, going homeward: "The death of a drunkard is a shameful end. Such a person can expect other people to mourn only for his folly."

But these sentiments made far less impression upon me then than the conduct of the wife of the dead man. I had somehow supposed that he was an old man; but instead, he was only thirty-four years of age; and his wife was an auburn-haired, strong woman, not more than thirty, unusually handsome in face and form. She was in a state of great excitement, not wholly caused by sorrow. It appeared that there had been a violently bitter quarrel between the pair, the night before the man's death; and so far from having forgiven her husband, even then, the woman exhibited the turbulence of her temper and behaved in an unseemly manner during and after the services. Her outcries gave me a very strange impression and in fact so shocked and terrified me, that to this day I cannot recall the scene without a singular sensation of disquiet. Withal, it was the first funeral which I had ever attended. As a lad I was in not a little doubt on several points, touching the behavior of widows on such occasions; and as we drove homeward, I ventured to ask the Old Squire whether women were often liable to go on at funerals as that one did. For I remember thinking that if this were really the case, I should never under any circumstances whatever, be allured into matrimony.

But the Old Squire at once said, positively, that they did not behave so, and that this woman (her name was Britannia) was an exception to all rules.

My next question upset him, however, for after a few moments of decent inward satisfaction over his reply, I asked him whether Britannia was a Pepperill.

Gramp turned half around on the wagon seat and looked at me in astonishment for an instant; he then burst out in a hearty laugh.

"No, no," said he. "She is no Pepperill, no connection whatever of your grandmother. The shoe is on the other foot. It's on my side this time."