"Run along then for a little while, but if you go out of the churchyard, you'll get a whippin'," replied my mother.
With this threat ringing like a bell in my ears, I left the house and walked quickly along the narrow pavement to where, across the wide street, I discerned the white tower and belfry which had been added by a later century to the parish church of Saint John. Overhead there was a bright blue sky, and the October sunshine, filtering through the bronzed network of sycamore and poplar, steeped the flat tombstones and the crumbling brick vaults in a clear golden light. The church stood upon a moderate elevation above the street, and I entered it now by a short flight of steps, which led to a grassy walk that did not end at the closed door, but continued to the brow of the hill, where a few scattered slabs stood erect as sentinels over the river banks. For a moment I stood among them, watching the blue haze of the opposite shore; then turning away I rolled over on my back and lay at full length in the periwinkle that covered the ground. From beyond the church I could hear Uncle Methusalah, the negro caretaker, raking the dead leaves from the graves, and here and there among the dark boles of the trees there appeared presently thin bluish spirals of smoke. The old negro's figure was still hidden, but as his rake stirred the smouldering piles, I could smell the sharp sweet odour of the burning leaves. Sometimes a wren or a sparrow fluttered in and out of the periwinkle, and once a small green lizard glided like the shadow of a moving leaf over a tombstone. One sleeper among them I came to regard, as I grew somewhat older, almost with affection—not only because he was young and a soldier, but because the tall marble slab implored me to "tread lightly upon his ashes." Not once during the many hours when I played in the churchyard, did I forget myself and run over the sunken grave where he lay.
The sound of the moving rake passed the church door and drew nearer, and the grey head of Uncle Methusalah appeared suddenly from behind an ivied tree trunk. Sitting up in the periwinkle, I watched him heap the coloured leaves around me into a brilliant pile, and then bending over hold a small flame close to the curling ends. The leaves, still moist from the rain, caught slowly, and smouldered in a scented cloud under the trees.
"Dis yer trash ain' gwine ter bu'n twel hit's smoked out," he remarked in a querulous voice.
"Uncle Methusalah," I asked, springing up, "how old are you?"
With a leisurely movement, he dragged his rake over the walk, and then bringing it to rest at his feet, leaned his clasped hands on the end of it, and looked at me over the burning leaves. He wore an old, tightly fitting army coat of Union blue, bearing tarnished gold epaulets upon the shoulders, and around his throat a red bandanna handkerchief was wrapped closely to keep out the "chills."
"Gaud-a-moughty, honey!" he replied, "I'se so ole dat I'se done clean furgit ter count."
"I reckon you knew almost everybody that's buried here, didn't you?"
"Mos' un um, chile, but I ain't knowed near ez many ez my ole Marster. He done shuck hans w'en he wuz live wid um great en small. I'se done hyern 'im tell in my time how he shuck de han' er ole Marse Henry right over dar in dat ar church."
"Who was ole Marse Henry?" I enquired.