"What for?" Jerry asked, looking up at the speaker with curiosity.
New Eden was still in that stage when a funeral was a public event. And the belief was still maintained that the dead out in the cemetery must be conscious of every attention or lack of it shown to their memory by visits and flowers, and the price of tombstones. In a word, to the New Eden living, the New Eden dead were not really in the Great Hereafter, but here, demanding consideration in the social economy of the community.
Ponk was more shocked at Jerry's query than she could begin to comprehend, and his interest in her and pity for her took a still stronger grip on life.
"Why, Miss Swaim, I come out here to see my mother. I 'ain't never failed to bring her a flower in summer, or a green leaf in winter, one single Sunday since she was laid out there on the south slope one Easter day eight Aprils ago."
"But she isn't there." Jerry spoke gently now, realizing that she had hurt him unintentionally.
"She is to me, an' I'd ruther think it thataway an' feel like I was callin' every Sunday, never forgettin'," Ponk said, sadly.
"Where's your dead to you, Miss Swaim?" he asked, after a pause.
Jerry, who was gazing down the Sage Brush Valley, turned slowly at his words, her big eyes luminous with tears.
"They are not." She waved a hand against viewless air.
"Oh yes, they are, walkin' beside you every day, lovin' you and proud of you! A good mother just lives on an' keeps doin' good, and so does a father, if you let 'em." Ponk hesitated, and his moon-round face was flushed. "I ain't tryin' to preach," he added, hastily. "They's some things, though, we all got to cling to or else get hustled off our feet into a big black void where we just sink and die. It ain't just Sage-Brushers, but it's all Christians—Baptists and Cammylites and High Church and everybody. It's safer to stand in the light than sink in the bottomless night. But, say, look who's comin' an' see what's trailin' him. I guess I'll be soarin' back to the hotel now. Pleased to meet you—always am pleased." Ponk lifted his hat and bowed uncovered, and uncovered walked away.