The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-10-06

and the two women sat in the corner sob
bling, but the men were quiet except at in
terVals, when they held whispered consult
tations or moved the old man when ne
seemed to be uneasy. He was too far
gone to speak, and after an, hour or so
he gave a little gulp and gasp, stretched
himself once or twice, ana Jay sun l
louder than ever. One of the men Wills
pered something to the women, and all
three of them event out, leaving the wo-
men with the dead man. They washed
his face and combed his hair, crying soft
" all the time. i could near the men
outside, and getting up 50 | could peep
out of small air hole in the gable JUST
above me, / saw them digging a grave
in piece of ground in the garden, which
looked as IL it had been prepared for
some other kind of planting. An hour
later the men carried the old man out,
dressed in the clothes in which he had
died. and buried him, coffinless. I'm the
garden. l wondered why they chose sucn
a time and made such haste, but, OF
course, it wasn't my turn to ask any
questions, and l wisely forbore. The bur-
ial ceremony was very brief, and after
the grave had been filled the men worked
over 1t carefully for some time. won
dered why they did this also, but re-
Trained from asking questions; and when
1t was. all over two of the men wfnt Off
into the woods, and the other came into
the house and sat down with the women.
They sat there over the Pickering firc,
and thus leaving them | went to sleep
again. That was all knew till l was
called to breakfast about o'clock. Del
I '0 was directed to little
creek back of the house where / might
perform my matutinal additions, and on
my way. thither l passed the garden
patch where the midnight burial had
taken place There's was no more sign Of
the grave visible than there was the even
ing before, and L wondered still more.
but said nothing. Neither did / think
l might have dreamed II. l knew there
was dead body and under that nice
little raked-over patch as well as knew
anything, but kept the knowledge TO
myself and have done so until now,
for / have quit travelling down that way
As usual with mountaineers, they did not
do much talking, and when / said that
had slept all night long and felt much
refreshed, they simply said they were
glad to hear It. Only the two women
and the man who were present at sup
per were at breakfast, and the man
stayed only a short time, saying he would
go on to the shop and fix up my wagon,
as he wasn't feeling much of an appe-
tite anyway, which didn't surprise me
in the least couple of hours after
breakfast 1 was ready to move on, and
as [ passed the house on my way / no
ticed the two women in the garden plant
ing some kind of seed in the same little
netch where ] had seen a much more
Impressive planting only few hours be-
fore"
The marshal was silent for a full min
ute after the drummer had finished.
by -p' he exclaimed that's cour-
age and pride for you. Those five peo-
pie were the old mans children, and they
put him away in that little garden patch
at midnight alone and unprayed for, to
hide the shame Of It.
What are you going TO DO about it?'
inquired the reporter.
I'm done with 1t forever" replied the
marshal, and the party went In with
the official to where the champagne
was flowing. =