Directly in the shelter of the church was the burying-ground. It had first been laid out at the corner of the road, on one side of the great building; but slowly and surely it crept around behind the sheds where the horses were during the Sunday services, and then still farther on to the other side. The first part of the yard was almost filled with little and leaning stones, and most of its silent were forgotten by all save a few old people who lingered far beyond the natural term of life. The new yard, as we called it, was in every way more than the old; the headstones were higher, the grass was greener, the mounds were more regular, and the trees and were better kept. The bones of many of the dead aristocracy had been dug up out of the old yard by their proud relatives, and carefully laid in the new, where they might rest in the same exclusive surroundings in which they lived while still upon the earth.  
As a child, these had no definite meaning to me, but I never went by them after nightfall if I could possibly go any other way, especially if I chanced to be alone. If I could not avoid going this way, I always kept well to the other side of the road, and walked or ran as fast as I could, with scarcely a glance toward the silent yard and the white stones that gleamed so grimly in the dusk. Sometimes a number of us boys would go through the yard in broad daylight, but even then we preferred almost any other spot.
 
I cannot recall when a sense of the real meaning of a churchyard came full upon me. I have no doubt that I unconsciously felt the gloom of the place before I understood what it really meant.
 
In the summer-time we children were usually taken through the on our way home from church; but after the long services even this seemed a pleasant spot. On Sunday we were not afraid, for all the worshippers went home this way.
 
The yards were filled with trees carefully trimmed and clipped, with here and there a weeping-willow its doleful branches to the ground. Why these trees were chosen for the churchyard, I cannot tell; but I have never since seen an evergreen or a weeping-willow that did not take me back to that little spot. The wound in and out, and ran off in all directions to reach each separate plat of ground that the neighbors had set apart as the final resting-place which would be theirs until the resurrection came. Most of them firmly believed in this great day,—or at least they told themselves they did. Around the yard was a neat white fence, always kept in good repair; and the gates were carefully locked except on the Sabbath day. Many times I saw the old sexton wait until the last mourner had slowly left the yard, and then carefully lock the gate and go away. It seemed to me as if he were locking the gate to keep his silent tenants in, like a jailer who turns the bolts upon the prisoners in their cells.
 
As a little child, I used to look at the sexton half in , and I almost feared to 123come into his uncanny presence. I never could think that he was quite like other men, or else he could not the dirt so carelessly into the open grave. I had never seen anyone but the old sexton fill the grave and smooth the little that was always made from the dirt that was left over after the was put down; and I used to wonder, in my childish way, how the sexton himself would get buried when he was dead.
 
The church and the graveyard were closely associated in my mind. It seemed to me, as a little child, that the church had full of the yard, and that the care and protection of the graves and their tenants were the chief reasons why the church was there. The great bell slowly and mournfully at each death, and we counted the solemn strokes to know the age of the hapless one whose turn had come. Sometimes we could even guess who had died, from the number of times it struck; but even these strokes did not impress me much. Almost always the number was very great. I could not see any connection between these old people and myself; and, besides, I felt that if the time could 124ever come when I had grown so old, I would have lived far beyond an age when there was any joy in life. On the day of the funeral, too, the bell commenced to when the hearse came into view from the church and began its slow journey up the hill, and it did not cease until the last carriage was inside the yard. The importance of the dead could always be told by the length of time the old bell rang while the procession crawled up the hill. We used to compare these processions, and dispute as to who had the longest funeral; but after old Allen’s turn had come, there was no longer any doubt. As I grew older, and began to give to my ambitions and dreams, I hoped and rather believed that in the far-off years I might have a longer procession than the one that had followed him to the little yard, but of late y............