Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

'Thunderation, mother!' Tom exclaimed, 'would you have me yell and scream, and make a fool of myself? I sat up all night long, which was more than you did, and I've been meditating in the woods, and have seen Maude and made it square with her. What more can I do?'

'You can see to things,' Mrs. Tracy replied. 'Your father is all broken up and has gone to bed, and it is not becoming in me to be around. Somebody must take the helm.'

'And somebody has,' Tom answered her. 'Uncle Arthur is master of the ceremonies now. He is running the ranch, and running it well, to.'

And Tom was right, for Arthur had taken the helm, and aided and abetted by Jerrie, was quietly attending to matters and arranging for the funeral, which Dolly said must be in the house, as she would not go to the church, with a gaping crowd to stare at her. So it was to take place at the house on Friday afternoon, and Arthur ordered a costly coffin from New York, with silver mountings and panels, and almost a car-load of flowers and floral designs, for Jerrie had explained to him Maude's wishes with regard to her grave, which they lined first with the freshest of the boughs from the four pines, filling these again with flowers up to the very top, so that the grave when finished seemed like one mass of flowers, in which it would not be hard to lie.

Dolly had objected to Billy as one of the pall-bearers. He was too short and inferior looking, she said, and not at all in harmony with Dick, and Fred, and Paul Crosby, the young man who, in Harold's absence, had been asked to take his place. But Arthur overruled her with the words 'It was Maude's wish,' and Billy kept his post.

The day arrived, and the hour, and the people came in greater crowds than they had done when poor Jack was buried, or the dark woman, Nannine, with only Jerrie as chief mourner, and the procession was the longest ever seen in Shannondale; and Dolly, even while her heart was aching with bitter pain, felt a thrill of pride that so many were following her daughter to the grave.

Arrived at the cemetery, there was a halt for the mourners to alight and the bearers to take the coffins from the hearse and carry it to the grave—a halt longer than necessary, it seemed to Jerrie, who under the folds of her veil did not see the tall young man making his way through the ranks of the people crowding the road, straining every nerve to reach the hearse, which he did just as the four young men were taking the coffin from it.

With a quick movement he put Paul Crosby aside, saying, apologetically:

'Excuse me, Paul. I must carry Maude to her grave. She wished it so.'

Then, taking the young man's place, he went slowly on to the open grave near which piles and piles of flowers were lying ready to cover the young girl who it was hard for him to believe was there beneath his hand, cold and dead, with no word of welcome for him who had tried so hard to see her, and was only in time for this, to help lay her in the grave and to listen to the solemn words 'ashes to ashes,' and hear the dreadful sound of earth to earth falling upon the box which held the beautiful coffin and the lovely girl within it.