Niels has a very confident feeling that he will live to be 82 years of age, but whether the call comes to quit this mortal life sooner or later he intends to be prepared for it, and the completeness of his arrangements for his burial and for perpetuating a knowledge of his burial place indicates the complacency with which he regards death. Some time since he purchased a quarter of a lot in the cemetery, and had a very substantial granite monument made to his order and erected thereon. An inscription upon it gives his name, date and place of his birth, his parentage, and Salt Lake City as the place of his death, with blank space below upon which to chisel in the date of his passing away. He also keeps his burial clothes, made by himself, all nicely laundried, in readiness to place upon his body when death shall overtake him. This too is another illustration of his independence, and disposition to do things himself rather than trust to others.
Since the erection of his tombstone, a lady who was somewhat acquainted with him happened to be in the cemetery and saw it. She read the inscription with surprise and sorrow. She failed to notice that the date of his death was lacking, and very naturally concluded that he had died and been buried, and was surprised that it could have happened without the news of it having reached her. She mourned to think she would never see him again, and that she had not even attended his funeral and manifested the respect she had for one whose suffering and inoffensiveness had so strongly appealed to her. In a pensive mood she returned home and told her friends how shocked and sorrow stricken she was at learning for the first time on seeing his monument of the death of her friend.
A few days later she was tripping across Main Street without any thought of death in her mind, when she suddenly beheld his familiar figure slowly moving down the side walk. She was so startled at sight of what she thought must be an apparition that she stood transfixed until she was aroused by the hoot of an approaching automobile, and narrowly escaped being knocked down and run over.
A custom prevails very generally among the peasantry throughout Scandinavia of changing the surname from generation to generation, while among the aristocracy the rule is to maintain the same surname in a family as one generation succeeds another. An exception to this latter rule sometimes occurs when a branch of an aristocratic family does not inherit wealth, or through some misfortune becomes financially reduced, and has to take rank per force with the peasantry. Then, notwithstanding the aristocratic lineage, the peasant method of changing the surname of the progeny from father to son is followed.
As already mentioned in this narrative, Niels was of aristocratic lineage on both his father's and mother's side. They were, however, of minor branches that did not inherit much wealth. The father, though given in infancy the family surname of Eskildz, was known more generally throughout his lifetime by his given name of Lars Nielsen, and called Eskildz more as a nickname than otherwise, or as a means of distinguishing him from others having the name of Lars Nielsen. When Niels was born he was named Niels Larsen, in accordance with the peasant custom, and it was not until he commenced his work in the house of the Lord that he assumed his rightful ancestral name, and is even now scarcely known outside of the Temple by the name of Eskildz.
Niels' father and mother were second cousins. His mother's maiden name was Marie Olesen Myre. As may be inferred from the relationship existing between them before marriage, theirs was not the first marriage between the Eskildz and Myre families. Some branches of these two families were very wealthy and influential when Niels was a boy, which fact, however, was of no advantage to their poorer relatives, among whom were Niels and his parents.