"I reckon they could find hit up most any hollow, now the corn is laid by," he said. "They ought to have sense enough not to take too much."
He had already noticed, and felt some surprise over the fact, that Lethie was in the crowd, saying her farewells to little Madison, who was to be kept by Cynthia Fallon. He knew that he had not asked her, or provided the nag. Silently he helped her, and the others, into their side-saddles; and, as soon as they had started, began to manœuvre so that he and Isabel should fall behind. But in vain. Nothing could detach her from Lethie's side.
After following Left Fork of Troublesome for a few miles, they went up a smaller branch, and then crossed a mountain. As they reached the "gap" in the ridge and looked down on the far side, a faint thread of song came up to them from the valley, increasing in volume as they descended; until, as they reached the burying-ground, on a little rise beside the creek, it became a rich, minor, hauntingly beautiful chorus of men's voices.
Hundreds of people were already gathered, some seated on rows of planks laid across logs in the shade, others wandering about on the outskirts. There were a number of small, latticed grave-houses; and with their backs to these, and facing the crowd, sat five preachers, on a special plank under a spreading beech.
When the party from The Forks took seats on a rear plank, Fult achieved a seat beside Isabel, only to have her, at the last moment, change, leaving Lethie between them. She did not see the angry glance he turned upon her.
As they were seated, the singing ceased, and one of the preachers, an old man with a kind face, arose and announced that this crowd was "mustered" and this meeting held for the purpose of "doing up" the funerals of four deceased persons—Elhannon Bowles, who had passed away the previous summer with the fever; his month-old child, who had died the year before; his old father, dead five years; and his mother, dead eight years.
Short biographies were then given of the four, beginning with the infant child, who had "gone home to glory with the choking-disease afore sin had ever smirched the whiteness of hits soul"; of the old father, who had "drapped dead all unthoughted" one day in the cornfield, ill-prepared, it was to be feared, for what awaited him; of the old mother, who had "allus fit the good fight, and passed on a-shouting"; and, finally, of Elhannon, whose future status would have been shrouded in some doubt had it not been for a vision of a "shining nag," which brightened his last moments and left hope in the bosoms of his bereaved widow and seven orphant offsprings.
"Yes, Ardely," he said, addressing the widow, who, in black sunbonnet and dress, occupied the front plank with her seven small children and a disconsolate-looking man, "you have a right hope of j'ining Elhannon again in the land where there hain't no widows or orphants, no sorrow or no parting or no tears, no fever or no choking-disease. Yes, I know all about hit, Ardely—twicet have I been along the lonesome road you now tread; twicet was I called upon to part with a fond companion, and to be paw and maw to my young-uns; two good women have I got in glory, and one in this mortal spere. I know how to sympathize with all widows, having been twicet a lone-lie widow myself, and a fair prospect, my present companion being puny-turned, of walking yet again in that vale of tears. Yes, Ardely, nobody knows better than me what hit is to have the heartstrings tore and frazzled, and the light of day everly put out, by affliction."
The widow bowed her head and wept loudly beneath the black sunbonnet, and the seven offsprings laid their heads on her lap or on one another's shoulders and joined in the lament, as did also a number of black-bonneted women on the front seats.
With the words, "I feel to take the hand of every widow here, man or woman, that has ever lost a dear companion," the preacher, stepping forward, offered a consoling hand, first to Ardelia, and then to all the other bereaved ones who pressed forward, the women weeping, the men silent, but with working faces, to clasp the understanding hands of one who could enter into the fellowship of their sufferings. The spectacle of human loss and sorrow, always a poignant one, was relieved and softened by the outpouring of this old man's sympathy and love.