The funeral was appointed for the morning of Thanksgiving Day, and a messenger was dispatched to Elder John Leland, of Cheshire, the eloquent evangelist, who was then in Boston, to ask him if he would conduct the services. The tender-hearted old man heard the story of Hannah’s life with deep sympathy.
“I will come,” said he, “but not to mourn for the dead. She does not need our tears. God has cleared her vision, and has taken her to Himself. Let us do as she wished. Your town had glorious names among its founders, and your church is closed, even though it is the harvest time. I shall preach not a funeral, but a Thanksgiving sermon, and I hope that every one who has been blessed during the year will be there. When the year has made a good harvest, and one has made a good life, all men should be thankful.”
The news was received with gladness in the thrifty community, which had so long lifted the pagan idols of theology over the religion of the heart and life. All the people of the rural towns who could leave their farms, prepared to attend the funeral of old Hannah, who sung countre, for in her death they had recognized her worth. No event had awakened so much interest for years.
The name of John Leland was at that time a household word. It lives now chiefly in connection with the almost Ambrosian hymn, “The day is past and gone,” and the story of the great Cheshire Cheese. He was a friend of Madison and Jefferson; at one time a member of the Massachusetts General Court,—a truly wonderful man in all relations of life. He used to travel any weather, praying along the roads, mounting the pulpit singing; always democratic, and a friend to all men.
It was an Indian summer day, calm and clear. The sun grew warm; and the heat dropped the frost-crimsoned leaves in showers. Early in the day people began to gather about the church. Most of them were glad that the blind day of theological disputation was to be broken by the ringing of the old bell. They came from neighboring towns in all kinds of conveyances.
The old sexton came with a claw hammer, and drew the nails out of the door, and dusted the pews, and aired the musty aisles, and tied a bell rope again to the bell. The church soon filled with people; afterward, the steps, and then the graveyard. The gathering was so great that it was difficult to keep a vacant place for poor old Hannah’s body.
Toll! The bell smote reproachfully on the glimmering air. Toll! The pine coffin was coming with fringed gentians upon it. Toll! Every heart there felt a moral shrinkage, as the coffin broke its way through the people.
They set it down at last under the high pulpit, near the deacon’s seat. But the crowd out of doors was larger than that in the house, and all were eager to hear what Elder Leland would have to say.
“Let us hold the services outside,” said the venerable evangelist. “Take the body out into the graveyard, and set it down in the middle of the graves of those to whom she was always so faithful, and I will preach where she used to preach to the birds and to the dead, from the meeting-house steps.”
They bore out the body, and set it down under the great cool trees, where the crisp leaves were dropping upon the graves. They opened the lid on the calm, sweet, face, where the people on the high ground could see it, and the tears of those in whose homes she had been a blessing to the sick and a comfort to the dying, fell like rain. Tender and eloquent were the words spoken by the white-haired Elder, over that still, dead, untroubled face.
The old trustees of the church were stirred as they had never been before. Soon after the close of the sermon, one of them mounted the steps, with a word to say to the people.
“She has opened these doors with her dead hand,” he said. “May they never be closed again by the living. The trustees have just had a meeting, and have agreed once more to open the house. This is a fitting ending to this day of mourning, and of Thanksgiving. Now, let the old bell ring.”
They closed the lid of the coffin forever, and bore the body to the open earth. The bell began to ring. The voice of the Elder rose in a sublime thanksgiving Psalm, as the bell pealed on, and the grave closed over all that was mortal of Hannah, who sang countre.
The people left the grounds, one by one. The struggle was ended. The work of this lone, feeble woman was done. She rested at last on the day of the Great Thanksgiving, of which she had prophesied. And she had been there, and the countre tone of her life had never made sweeter harmony.
She lies in a grave long neglected; but should one kneel down beside the stone that is sinking slowly into the earth, and peel away the moss, and follow the light carving on the blue slate under some quaint pictures of cherubs, one might read,—
Hannah Semple, who sang Countre
in the Choir, Ætat. 90.The old generation has been gathered to their fathers, but the new generation still feels the beneficent influence of that Great Thanksgiving.
CHAPTER XI.
WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME IN THE STATE BUILDINGS.
Stories of Puget Sound Indians, Selected old Story of “The Devil and Tom Walker,” A Folk-Lore Story of Old Rhode Island Days.
IN THE FISHERIES BUILDING.
E are now walking in the sea,” said Mr. Marlowe, as the trio moved along the Fisheries Building; “the inhabitants of the waters are around us on every hand.”
The Fisheries Building was built of everything beautiful produced by the sea. It would have charmed Ruskin. It was one thousand feet long and two hundred wide; two polygons connected by an arch. It was built of marine forms; and here, for the first time, the visitor might enter as it were the regions of the waters and travel among the inhabitants of the deep. Japan and Norway led the exhibits, while Massachusetts finely presented the industries of Gloucester.
“I find here,” said Mr. Marlowe, “an idea to take into our town life; it is shell decorations for lawns and houses.”
He took his note-book and wrote down the things that pleased him most which could be so used.
In the Agricultural Building, Mr. Marlowe found like hints in structures built of corn and cobs.
In the Kansas Building he saw another home art in the wonders of taxidermy.