Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1923-09-13

own name carved in the gray stone
of tall monument in the Jermyn
plot,
Eleanor Jermyn, wife Of Samuel
Jernyn; Born 1897, Died, 1857"
And beneath it that tryst of in.
vincible faith, "Whither thou goest !
will go; thy people shall be my
people and thy God my God"
Opposite stood the headstone on
Samuel Jermyn, dead three years be-
fore his wife,
A voice spoke quietly close behin5
the living Eleanor Jermyn: "Tha,
pledge was not for him."
"Not for Samuel Jermyn?" she
querled. 1t seemed quite in keeping
with the place and the spell that the
voice of the stranger who had SILENT!
hidden her to stay should be telling
her secret things of the past.
"You mustn't think 1t was for him."
insisted the voice.
''How strangely you say that! AS
If you were angry. Or jealous"
Jealous? Perhaps 1 am. Do you
want to know the rest?'
She followed him to the corner I'M
der the elm where he silently pointed
out another stone inscribed:
calvin Sennett, Born 1922, Died
1859: Where thou diest, will die.
and there will l be buried"
There, then was the clue to the
dead; she sought the clue to the liv-
ing. Ibid you come to the funeralT
"NOt your funeral. Nine" Both
laughed-the implication and the tens
ity was for the moment relaxed. "My
grandmOther's. She was buried three
days ago. All of us Sennetts come
back here. It's in my great-grand-
fathers will that we SHALL"
"And all of us Jermyns. I'm Flea.
nor Jermyn'
He nodded. "Of course. You had
to be-"
'Did I? Why?"
That's what has kept me here
waiting when I should be home pack
ing up for the interior of Brazil
knew there was something telling me
to wait. But I didn't know what.
Until I saw you"
"Don't be absurd" she chided him.
But there was a tone of expectancy,
of acceptance, of suspense in he,
voice.
do go too fast? I suppose I d..
But, you see, I've waited so long"
$50 long? Three days by your own
account"
"Seventy-five years." he retorted
with a gentle but inflexible assurance.
"You talk like a ghost"
perhaps am. Part ghost, at least.
Aren't you? Aren't we all?''
Ghosts of past lives?" she queried
thoughtfully. Like those lying here
about us? Tell me about them"
81 know only a little about those
two, the only two that matter to us
two Ny great-grandfather Calvin
Sennett, left here when he was a
young man and went to the Mexican
war. He never came back alive. He
married my great-grandmother in the
South years later. But there was a
broken romance stronger than his mar
rfage that drew him back here. and
all of us after him. I never knew
what it was until, at Grandmother's
funeral last week. read the inscrip-
ton on your headstone"
Il wish you wouldn't call it mine"
she protested. at gives me such an
uncanny feeling! The whole thing is
uncanny"
"Uncanny?" he repeated in a low
voice. "Oh, no. Eleanor. Not un-
canny it's-it's almost holy.''
That's worse" she complained. 81
don't think you're a pleasant COM
panlon for graveyard at all And
I've got to go anyway. There's a
frightful storm coming up"
"Too late to get away" said he as
few slow. heavy raindrops sounded
crisp on the leaves overhead, through
the stiffness. Come to the church."
The first flash seemed almost TO
overtake them as they ran for shelter
deep in the pOrtico, gaining it Just as
the rain whelmed everything in sooth-
ing gray.
Then million tons of light crashed
down upon them from the ruined roof
of heaven, and the two covering fig-
ures, merged in the shock of that nor.
tent, lay still.
Dim voices in the gray mist, voices
out of far past, speaking one TO the
other in the soft sibilance of wind and
rain and troubled leaves, a man-voice
and woman-voice.
The man-voice said: Eleanor! Nv
belovedI"
Keen with dread and pain, the wom-
an-voice cried "Why did you come
back?"
ITO claim you before the world"
you come too late"
Between us two no time can he too
late"
Il am the lawful welded wife of
Samuel Jermyn."
There followed o long, strairiag
hush; then the man-voice, fiercely:
after what we have been to each
ether?"
THAT was our sin. Oh, Calvin,
why did you not writer"
Il wrote. My messenger died on the
way"
"That was our punishment" said
the wOman-voice fearfully. "You must
gO Calvin -