The Land of Long Ago

by Eliza Calvert Hall

"Oh! go on," I cried; "this can't be the end of the story."

"Sometimes it's best not to know the end of a story," said Aunt Jane gravely.

But I heeded not the warning. I must know more of this girl who drew to herself the love of men as the ocean draws the rivers. "Tell me a little more about Miss Amaryllis," I pleaded.

But Aunt Jane was silent, and her eyes were sad. "There's mighty little more to tell," she said at last, her words coming slowly and reluctantly. "Miss Amaryllis died when her baby was born. The baby died, too, and they buried both of 'em in the same grave. It was the dead o' winter, and one o' the coldest winters we'd had for years. The ground was froze solid as a rock, and the snow was nearly a foot deep. It's hard enough, child, to lay the dead in the ground when the sun's shinin' and the earth's warm and there's plenty of sweet flowers and green sod to cover the grave with. But when it comes to cuttin' a grave in the snow and the ice and layin' away the body of a child that's bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, or maybe a husband or a wife that's nearer and dearer yet, why, there's no words, I reckon, that can tell what a trial that is. I always used to pray that my funerals might come in the spring or summer when everything was warm and pretty, and, child, my prayer was answered. I never had a winter funeral. I ricollect my baby brother dyin' when I was jest a little child. It was towards the end o' winter, and the first night after the funeral it rained, a hard, cold, beatin' rain, and mother walked the floor all night and wrung her hands and cried at the thought of her child's body lyin' in the grave and the cold rain fallin' on it; and she never got riconciled to the child's death and able to sleep right, till spring come and the grass got green, and she could carry flowers and put 'em on its little grave.

"And that's the way Hamilton Schuyler was, only worse. He had the body dressed in the dress she was wearin' at the dance the night he married her, and when they put the corpse in the coffin in the big parlor, he stayed by it for three days and nights, leanin' over and whisperin' and smilin' and smoothin' her hair and pattin' the little dead baby on its hands and face. Every time they'd say anything about buryin' the body, he'd throw his arms around the coffin and carry on so terrible that there was nothin' to do but let him have his way. He kept sayin', 'Maybe she's not dead. She may be sleepin' like the baby, and to-morrow they'll both wake up.' And then he'd say, 'If it was only summer-time! Can't you find some roses? She ought to have her hands full of roses.'

"And as soon as dark come, he'd have all the wax candles lighted in the parlor, and they said it made your flesh creep to hear him talkin' and laughin' with the dead all night long, and the whole room blazin' with light jest like there was a weddin' goin' on.

"Well, when the third day come, they said the funeral had to be, and they dug the grave in the family buryin'-ground and cut branches of cedar and pine and lined it so you couldn't see the frozen earth anywhere, and they covered the coffin with ivy off the walls o' the old house. It was one o' these clear, sunshiny winter days, when the sky's soft and blue jest like it is in May or June, but the air was bitter cold, and there was a crust of ice on top o' the snow and the frozen ground under it. Hamilton had got kind o' quiet by this time, and he was so weak from loss o' sleep and not eatin' anything that they thought they wouldn't have any more trouble, but when they let the coffin down into the ground and the first clod fell on it, it took the strength of three men to keep Hamilton from throwin' himself into the grave."

Alas, the sad, sad story, beginning with love and spring and youth, and ending beside an open grave under wintry skies! Aunt Jane was wiping her glasses, and my tears were flowing fast.

"Death has mighty few terrors when it comes at the right time, honey," said Aunt Jane tremulously. "You know the Bible says 'We all do fade as a leaf; and when a person's lived out his app'inted time, three score years and ten, or maybe four score, why, his death is jest like the fallin' of a leaf. It's had its spring and its summer, and it's nothin' to cry about when the frost comes and touches it, and it falls to the ground to make room for the new leaves that'll come next spring. But jest suppose that the leaves fell as soon as the trees got green and pretty in the springtime, and suppose all the roses died in the bud. Wouldn't this be a sorrowful world, if things was that way? There ain't any bitterness in the tears that's shed over old folks' coffins, but when I think o' Miss Amaryllis dyin' the way she did, before she'd lived her life and had the happiness she ought to 'a' had, I feel like questionin' the ways o' Providence. And then, again, I think maybe she had as much happiness in that one year as most folks has in a lifetime. It ain't often a man loves a woman so much that he can't live without her, but that's the way Hamilton Schuyler loved Miss Amaryllis, and that's the main reason why I ricollect her so well after all these years. Her hair and her eyes would keep me from forgittin' her outright, and when I think of how she looked and how Hamilton Schuyler loved her, it seems like she was different from all the other women that ever I've known."

"Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes!" sings the poet; but "Love and beauty! Love and beauty!" answers the soul. And thus, doubly immortalized, and radiant as when she played with the hearts of men in her golden youth, this maiden more beautiful than her name shall live in the tale I tell as it was told to me.