As he worked,
he whistled, for his occupation held no more significance to him than an
alternative employment: the breaking of stones by the highway side. He
could see the black heads of the mourners bobbing away upon the road to
Drift, and stopped to watch them for a moment. But soon he returned to his
labor; the earth rose foot by foot, and the strong young man stamped it
down. Then it bulged and overflowed the full hole; whereupon he patted and
hammered it into the customary mound and slapped upon it sundry pieces of
sodden turf with gaping gashes between their edges. The surplus soil he
removed in a wheelbarrow, the boards he also took away, then raked over the
earth-smeared, bruised grass about the grave and so made an end of his
work.
"Blamed if I ever filled wan quicker'n that," he thought, with some
satisfaction; "I reckoned the rain must fall afore I'd done, but it do hold
off yet seemin'ly."
The man departed, gray twilight fell, and out from the gathering darkness,
like a wound on the hand of Time, that new-made grave and its fringe of
muddy grass stood forth, crude of color, raw, unsightly in the deepening
monochrome of the gloaming.
At Drift the important meal which follows a funeral was enjoyed with sober
satisfaction by about fifteen persons. Cold fowls and a round of cold beef
formed the main features of the repast; Mary poured out tea for the women
at her end of the table, while the men drank two or three bottles of
grocer's sherry among them.
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