The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-16
A WOMAN'S LIFE.
"He is dead!"

She said this in a manner which seemed
TO imply that there was nothing strange
in the fact that she was alone with him.
She was always alone with him, was she
not? Was it necessary that she open the
doors and call them all in because he was
dying?
They passed from the narrow hall into
the front room, with its green paper
shades, it's worn carpet and meager fur
niture. His bed had been moved down
from the floor above whe his last illness
had seized him, and here it had remained,
a black walnut bedstead, with towering
%headboard, which shut out the light from
one of the two windows in the room. This
bedstead had been one of his few, his very
few, extravagances in the years gone by
and in its dark shadow he now lay rigid.
He had been a stern. grizzled man in life,
but the sternness then had been as very
s~oftness compared with the hard, cold out
line of the face now upon the pilllow,in the
green light of the lowered window shade.
They moved about the room on tiptoe.
speaking in the kissing whispers consid-
cred appropriate by them in the presence
of death.
'When did it happen?' someone asked.
Half an hour ago"
Hadn't 1 better call the doctor or the
minister?'
Il don't see what good they'ed be-
Another woman crept in silently, a shawl
huddled over her head
Il jest heerd," she whispered.
They waited in silence for her to go on.
She was the woman of the village who al
ways officiated at the laying OUT of the
dead. The reason for this no one had ever
sought. Possibly the right was hers be-
cause she so enjoyed the grewsome privi-
lege. At least she chung to it tenaciously.
Now, Mis- 'Lizbeth, you jest go upstairs
and I'll tend to things she said. while the
otter women waited her commands, half
resenting her cool assumption of control.
but with a full consciousness of her capa-
bility in tending to such things
The bare little church, with it's white
walls and staring windows; its stiff pine
pulpit painted a dingy yellow, with the
minister's green upholstered chair behind it,
was well filled the day of the funeral. A
'burying" was not a thing to miss without
grave cause There were old men and
women in the congregation who had not
missed a funeral within ten miles Of them
for fifty years. They sat solemnly waiting
for the minister to begin the service, taking
close notice of the coffin and calculating it's
cost. Not a difficult problem for them. with
their long experience. They also noted
closely the appearance of the one mourner
VINO sat directly in front of the pulpit
alone, save for the presence in her pew If
me woman VINO mad come to her huddled
ulder a shawl. This strange woman al
ways sat with the meurners, as though she
lett a claim upon the bodies of the dead
until their tinal surrender to mother earth
But the dead mans laughter sat ava
from her companion quite at the farthest
end Of the seat, as If she would be as much
apart from them ali in her present loneli-
ness as she had been before. 1t was fifteen
years since she had sat with them in the
cnufch, and they locked at her now with
curiosity: A slight little woman, with tired
eyes ana dull brown hair, streaked with
gray.
The minister arose and folded unon tha
open Bible his lean hands with their great
veins and yellow joints. He prayed lone
and laboriously, his voice rising from a
doleful Sing-song drawl into a shout and
then sinking into a whisper. They wagged
their heads knowingly in the pews and
Whispered to one another that it was a
"poW'ful effect Toward the close of his
prayer many eyes were turned expectantly
toward the woman who sat alone. The
minister, was calling loudly for the lost
sheep VINO is not with us safe in the shelta'
or lions walls. oh, Lord, he walled.
make yo'h wah'nin' plain to. her o%nseein'
eyes mat she may seek safety from the
wrath to come" If the woman heard or
understood his words no acknowledgment
OF that fact touched her thin face.
she sat with folded hands, her eyes upon
~, 49, tAAC Oa~iAh pulpit
Then the minister began his sermon. From
the earliest dawn of the dead mans life.
through his childhood, youth and manhood
unto the last moment of his old age the
speaker journeyed, going unctuously over
the dreary details of the meager, common
history. They all knew it we'll, but they
listened greedily, jealousy fearful that the
speaker might overlook a single incident
in the mans dull history. When he had
exhausted every period of his subjects life
the minister began the apotheosis of the
man. His goodness, his charity, his up
FI 55ora IS an and; aboye % all his atireiess
dwelt upon. He had in truth been cruel
and hard and mean.
They all knew this, but he had lived and
died d member in good standing, and any
other treatment of his character by the
preacher would have been a scandalous
thing, unheard of and not to be forgiven.
At the close of his discourse the minister
turned his colorless eyes upon the woman
who sat apart. There vas" he said, his
voice falling into a low and solemn drawl;
there was one cross which our Lord and
Master had seen fit to bind upon the shout
ders of the brother who has Just gone befo'
us into the glory of the heavenly kingdom.
A cross hard to bear; a cross whose liftin'
he had wrestled with often and nightly
in prayer, but which divine Providence seen
Mt to allow to remain upon the shoulders
of His faithful son.
1T was, my brothers and sisters, the re-
fusal of the only one of his kin to accept
the Lord, to wash herself in the blood of
the lamb, to join with those who journey
g ghward Of save eTer IA the 1 afms Of His Hes yoic IN b }h9
risen into a shout. THE night is comm.
| the day is almost done. Oh! let us pray
for them who falters and will not turn
from the wrath of God befo'h it is too late"
His voice sank suddenly into a whisper,
and the words too late" went kissing out
over the heads of people, who sat with
craning necks and knowing faces cruelty
turned, toward the woman, whose eyes for
a single instant had not left the front of
the dingy yellow pulpit.
The hearSe, with the one closed carriage
of which the village boosted, moved slow
ly away from the church along the mud
dy road, followed by a struggling line of
wagons. The majority of the people lin
gered about the church door watching the
woman who sat stifly erect in the carriage,
the minister facing her, at her side the
loVe for the dead. This woman sat with
her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, as
if she must needs make amends for the
others stony cOmposure.
The road, after leaving the village in
the bottom lands along the river, wound
up the side of the bluff upon which the
burying ground was situated. 1t was an
autumn day, and the golden haze of that
valley bathed the wide stretch of country
upon which the cemetery looked down. A
sky of marvellous blue spread it's canopy
above them, while the bright glow of the
the dreary little home of the dead with it's
tip-tilted monuments and scattered, sunken
graves, it's rays EMBEDDING with no mellow
ing touch the group of sallow-faced men
and women in rusty and shapelesS garb
who clustered about the newly-made grave.
They lifted their voices and sang quaVer-
ingly amid the strangely death-like still
ness of the declining day. 1t was a dismal
dragged it out in unmusical and uncertain
tones it seemed a fitting symbol of their
narrow, unlovely lives. When the last clod
of reddish clay had fallen upon the oblong
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