"Because the Creator has almost deprived them of forgiving power. Don't tempt one of them to sin by giving occasion for the exercise of that wherein they mourn at being deficient."
I pulled dead grassy fibres again, and said nothing.
The second time he bent to the mound of earth, and said,—
"Please tell me now, Miss Anna, whose grave this is;" and there were tears in his eyes that made them for the moment grandly brown.
"Truly, Mr. Axtell, I do not know. I've been so busy with the living that I've not thought much of this place. It long since all these died, you know;" and I looked about upon the little village closed in by the iron railing. "I do not know that I can tell you one, save my mother's, here. I remember her; the others I cannot."
I arose to walk around to the headstone and see.
"No," he said. "Will you listen to me a little while?"
"If you'll sing for me."
"Sing for you?"—and there was a world of reproach in his meaning. "Is this a place for songs? or am I a man to sing?"
"Why not, Mr. Axtell? Aaron told me that you could sing, if you would; he has heard you."