A slatternly looking woman comes in, buys some calico, thread, two yards of ribbon, and some hooks and eyes. When she departs some one remarks, “Wonder wot she’s goin’ to make now!” From that the conversation drifts to “the feller that left ’er about two years ago.” The proprietors of the chin whiskers all knew “when ’e fust come ’round, ’e wasn’t any good,” and the sage prophecies of by-gone days are now fully verified. The demerits of a certain horse, which he had once sold to one of the prophets, are again recounted, and the general opinion is that after the delinquent “got through with the lawsuit ’e was mixed up in, ’e went out west som’ers with the money ’is lawyer didn’t git. Anyhow, ’e was no good.” Nobody is “any good.”
When the time comes to “git home to supper,” the dilapidated vehicles begin to crawl out into the fading light and disappear. They carry the pessimists and the few necessaries which they have bought at the store—some molasses, sugar, tea and coffee, possibly a new shovel, some nails, and always a plentiful supply of plug tobacco, a great deal of which is filtered into the soil of the back country. Some eggs, butter, vegetables, and other produce of the little farm has been left in payment.
THEY “CRAWL OUT INTO THE FADING LIGHT”
After the tired horses are unhitched and fed, the exciting gossip is retold at the supper table. A few chores are done, an hour or so is spent around the big lamp, and another eventful day has closed. A week may pass before another trip is made to the sleepy village.
Those who are gone are under the tall grasses and wild flowers on the hill near the woods, beyond the little weather-beaten country church. The iron bell has tolled for them as they were laid away, and now that it is all over, it is the same with them as if they had been monarchs or millionaires.
A touching, if crude, epitaph can be deciphered on one of the gray mossy stones through the crumbling fence. After the name and the final date are the lines,
“Shed not for me the bitter tears
Nor fill the heart with vain regrets.
’Tis but the casket that lies here,
The gems that filled them sparkles yet.”
and lower, under a pair of clasped hands, “We will meet again,” and it may be that a mighty truth is on the stone.
