Saturday morning, Keats, Hen and even I tried to beg off from the funeral occasion; but of course it was useless; and there was a busy time getting ready to start. A little past noon, I, on Mandy, with Susanna behind me, and Mrs. Salyer on Charlie, with Sammy before and Neely behind, reached the top of Bee Tree Gap, and looked down into the valley on the far side, the boys racing ahead of us. On a hill-shoulder below, grave-houses were visible, and people and nags were moving about.
Still farther down the valley, Mrs. Salyer showed me Emmeline's lonely little home. Emmeline, she said, had died a year and three months before, during the typhoid that took off Mr. Salyer, leaving a virtuous and pious memory, seven small children, and a deeply-stricken "widow."
Before we reached the burying-ground, the services began with a long-drawn funeral song, that came up to us in snatches. Very mournful and beautiful the tune was, embodying the very spirit of loneliness, sorrow and resignation. As we drew nearer, Mrs. Salyer joined in the refrain, and I caught some of the words,
I'm a long time travelling here below,
A long time travelling away from my home.
A long time travelling here below
To lay this body down!
"A long time travelling" indeed it seems to those of us bereft as she is, and as I am. The inexpressible sweep, dignity and pathos of the song will haunt me as long as I live.
We joined the crowd among the grave-houses. In front of the newest of these, saplings had been laid across logs to make seats; and the people who could not be accommodated here sat on the ground or walked quietly about. Even the numerous babies were quiet, as if knowing that a funeral occasion demanded it.
The immediate family sat on the front sapling, facing the preachers, who occupied a plank against the grave-house. Mrs. Salyer pointed out Emmeline's bereaved "widow" to me. He sat with drooping head and utterly dejected attitude, while the row of children with him wept. Just at his side was a wholesome-faced young woman, surely too old to be Emmeline's daughter, holding on one arm a child about a year-and-a-half old, and in the other a very pink new baby.
"Who is that?" I inquired.
Mrs. Salyer whispered back, "That's his new woman, Mary,—of course he was bound to get him one right off, with all them young ones. She treats them mighty good, too. The new one's hers,—it come eight days ago, just in time for the funeral occasion."
When the first preacher started to speak, and Emmeline's virtues began to be aired, I saw with interest and surprise that Mary wept as sincerely and heartily as anybody, her tears dropping down impartially upon the nursing baby and the older one. Once, when her husband seemed quite overcome, she laid a pitying hand on his shoulder; at other times, with a corner of her apron she tenderly wiped the eyes and noses of all the children within reach. And when, later, the preacher referred solemnly and unblinkingly to the fact that Emmeline's offsprings had now fell into the hands of a step-maw, and it behooved her to remember that she must one day give account to the God of widows and orphans, she bowed her head very humbly, and seemed to be at once overwhelmed and uplifted by the thought of her responsibility. Her face was really wonderful and beautiful, and in it I saw far more hope for the happiness of Emmeline's offsprings than in that of the "widow." In both wives he appears to have received more than his deserts.