"If we are to take care of this cemetery, I think we should have something to say about what is planted here, anyhow," added Mrs. Acres petulantly.
"We will have. There's been a committee appointed to draw up resolutions covering that," answered Mrs. Sasnett, who was also a firm woman.
"I hope Sarah Mosely has left something to the Civic League and Cemetery Association," said another woman walking behind.
"I doubt it, she had no public spirit. We could never interest her in the work. Such a pity."
"And in these days when women are taking hold and doing things. I called on her myself when we were putting out plants along the railroad embankment beside the station and asked her for a contribution, even if it was only a few dozen nasturtiums. But she said she wasn't interested."
"I wonder what she has done with her money. Nobody seems to know."
They stood staring back at the grave, which was now deserted except for the sexton's men, who were filling it, and a tall thin old man who stood with his head bare, leaning upon his cane with an air of reverence. Beneath the coffin lid below Sarah Mosely lay with her hands folded, faintly smiling like a little withered girl who has done something, left a curious deed which was to puzzle those who were still awake when they discovered what she had done. And it did.
It was the afternoon of the same day. The doors of all the business houses were open. Jordantown had taken off its coat and was busy in its shirt sleeves trying to make up for the trade lost during the morning. Customers came and went, merchants frowned, clerks smiled. Teams passed. Children returning from school added, by their joyous indifference, irritation to the general situation. All the sparrows were back in the dust of the street discussing its merits. And everywhere men were gathered in groups talking about something—the Something. The business of the town was like a house toppling upon sand as long as no one knew what was to be the disposition of the Mosely Estate. This was what every one was talking about.
Jordantown is one of those old Southern communities large enough to have "corporations," a mayor and council, but small enough for members of "the best families" not to speak to members of other "best families." Everybody had "feelings" and they showed them, especially if they were not agreeable. It was not a progressive place, due, partly, to its ante-bellum sense of dignity, but more particularly to the fact that when a business firm was about to fail, it did not fail. It borrowed enough to "tide over" from the agent of the William J. Mosely Estate. This interfered with that natural law in the business world as everywhere else, the survival of the fittest. Everybody survived, the fit and the unfit, which is death to competition and that arterial excitation without which trade becomes stagnation.
Three men sat in the private office of the National Bank, the windows of which overlooked the town square. They were the tutelary deities of all public occasions in the town. They always sat on the platform behind the speaker on Decoration Days. They were supposed to control municipal elections, but not one of them had ever "run" for an office. Deities don't. They are the powers behind the throne. These men represented Providence in Jordantown. And Providence is always behind the scenes. The trouble now was that by an ordinary and inevitable process of nature they had lost control of the situation. A little old woman had died who had no sense, and who for that very reason might have done something foolish with the William J. Mosely Estate, which was the very foundation upon which all deities and providences rested in that place.