Friendship Village Part 31

"An' after a while we made her see it, an' that was the first regular dress ever wore to a buryin' in Friendship, by the one that was the one.

"I'll never forget when 'Leven come out o' that room, after she'd got through. We all went in--Mis' c.r.a.pwell an' Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb an' I, an' some more. An' I took 'Leven back in with me. An' as soon as I see Jennie I see it was Jennie come back--hair just as natural as if it was church Sunday mornin' an' her in her pew. We all knew it was so, an' we all said so, an' Mis' c.r.a.pwell, she just out cryin' like she'd broke her heart. An' when the first of it was over, she went acrost to 'Leven, an' 'Oh,' s'she, 'you've give her back to me. You give her back.

G.o.d bless you!' she says to her. An' when I looked at 'Leven, I see the 'Huh?' look wasn't there at all. But they was a little somethin' on her face like she was proud, an' didn't quite want to show it--along of her features or complexion or somethin' never havin' had it spread on 'em before.

"Nex' mornin' o' course 'Leven put on the shroud again. I must say it give me the creeps to see her wearin' it, even if it did look like everybody's dresses. I donno what it is about such things, but they make somethin' scrunch inside o' you. Like when they got a new babtismal dish for the church, an' the minister's sister took the old one for a cake dish.

"S'I, to 'Leven, after breakfast:--

"We're goin' to line Jennie's grave this mornin'. I guess you'd like to go with us, wouldn't you?'

But I see her face with the old look, like the back o' somethin', or like you'd rubbed down the page when the ink was wet, an' had blurred the whole thing unreadable. An' I judged that, like enough, she knew nothin' whatever about grave-linin', done civilized.

"'I mean, I thought mebbe you'd like to help us some,' I says.

"'I would!' s'she, at that, rill ready an' quick. An' it come to me 't she knew now what _help_ meant. She'd learnt it the night before from Jennie's mother--like she'd learnt to answer a bell when Somebody pressed it. Only, o' course she never guessed Who it was ringin'

it--like you don't at first.

"So I made up my mind I'd take her to the cemet'ry. We done the work up first, an' 'Leven spried 'round for me, wipin' the dishes with the wipin' cloth in a bunch, an' settin' 'em up wrong places. An' I did hev to go in the b.u.t.t'ry an' laugh to see her sweep up. She swep' up some like her broom was a branch an' the wind a-switchin' it.

"Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb stopped by for us, with the white cotton cloth an' the tacks, an' by nine o'clock we was over to the cemet'ry.

The grave was all dug an' lined with nice pine boards, an' the dirt piled 'longside, an' the boards for coverin' an' the spades layin' near.

Zittelhof was just leavin', havin' got in his pulley things to lower 'em. Zittelhof's rill up to date. Him an' Mink, the barber, keep runnin'

each other to see who can get the most citified things. No sooner'd Zittelhof get his pulleys than Mink, he put in shower-baths. An' when Mink bought a buzz fan, Zittelhof sent for the lavender cloth to spread over 'em before the coffin comes. It makes it rill nice for Friendship.

"'Who's goin to get down in?' says Mis' Toplady, shakin' out the cloth.

Mis' Toplady always use' to be the one, but she can't do that any more since she got so heavy. An' Mis' Holcomb's rheumatism was bad that day an' the grave middlin' damp, so it was for me to do. An' all of a sudden I says:--

"''Leven, you just get down in there, will you? An' we'll tell you how.'

"'_In the grave?_' says 'Leven.

"I guess I'm some firm-mannered, just by takin' things for granted, an'

I says, noddin':--

"'Yes. You're the lightest on your feet,' I says--an' I sort o' shoved at her, bird to young, an' she jumped down in, not bein' able to help it.

"'Here,' s'I, flingin' her an end o' cloth, 'tack it 'round smooth to them boards.'

"'Mother o' G.o.d,' says she, swallowin' in her breath.

"But she done it. She knelt down there in the grave, her poor, frowzy head showin,' an' she tacked away like we told her to, an' she never said another word. Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb didn't say nothin', either, only looked at me mother-knowin'. Them two--Mis' Toplady more'n anybody in Friendship, acts like bein' useful is bein' alive an' nothin'

else is. They see what I was doin', well enough--only I donno's they'd 'a' called it what I did, 'bout the Lord's housekeepin' an all. An' I knew I couldn't gentle 'Leven into the _i_-dee, but I judged I could shock it into her--same as her an' the Big Lil kind have to hev. Some folks you hev to shoot _i_-dees at, muzzle to brain.

"I donno if you've took it in that when you're in a grave, or 'round one, your talk sort o' veers that way? Ours did. Mis' Banker Mason's baby had just died in March, an' the choir'd made an awful scandal, breakin' down in the fifth verse of 'One poor flower has drooped and faded.' They'd stood 'em in a half circle where they could look right down on the little thing. An' when the choir got to

"But we feel no thought of sadness For our friend is happy now, She has knelt in heartfelt gladness Where the holy angels bow,

they just naturally broke down an' cried, every one of 'em. An' then the little coffin was some to blame, too--it was sort of a little Lord Fauntleroy coffin, with a broad white puff around, an' most anybody would a' cried when they looked in it, even empty. But Doctor June, he just stood up calm, like his soul was his body, an' he begun to pray like G.o.d was there in the parlour, Him feelin' as bad as we, an' not doin' the child's death Himself at all, like we'd been taught--but sorrowin' with us, for some o' His housekeepin' gone wrong. An' by the time Banker an' Mis' Mason got in the close' carriage an' took the little thing's casket on their knees--you know we do that here, not havin' any white hea.r.s.e--why, we was all feelin' like G.o.d Almighty was hand in hand in sorrow with us. An' it's never left me since. I know He is.

"We talked that over while 'Leven tacked the evergreen on the white cloth. An' I know Mis' Toplady says she'd stayed with Mis' Banker Mason so much since then that she felt G.o.d had sort o' singled her--Mis'

Toplady--out, to give her a chanst to do His work o' comfortin'. 'I've just let my house go,' s'she, 'an' I've got the grace to see it don't matter if I have.' Mis' Toplady ain't one o' them turtle women that their houses is sh.e.l.ls on 'em, burden to back. She's more the bird kind--neat little nest under, an' wings to be used every day, somewheres in the blue.

"So 'Leven done all Jennie c.r.a.pwell's grave. She must 'a been down in it an hour. An' when she got through, an' looked up at us from down in the green, an' wearin' Jennie's shroud an' all, I just put out my hands, to help her up, an' I thought, almost like prayin': 'Oh, raise up, you Dead, an' come forth--come forth.' Sort o' like Lazarus. An' I know I wasn't sacrilegious from what happened; for when Mis' Toplady an' Miss Holcomb come up to 'Leven an' says, rill warm, how well she'd done it an' how much obliged they was, I see that little look on the girl's face again like--oh, like she'd wrote somethin' on the blurry page, somethin'

you could read.

"Jennie was buried that afternoon at sharp three. It was a sad funeral, 'count o' Jennie's trouble, an' all. But it was a rill big funeral an'

nicely conducted, if I do say that done the managin'. Mis' Postmaster Sykes seated the guests--ain't she the kind that always seems to be one to stand in the hall at funerals with her hat off, to consult about chairs an' where shall the minister lay his Bible, an' who'd ought to be invited to set next the bier? An' she always takes charge o' the flowers. Mis' Sykes can tell you who sent what flowers to who for years back, an the wordin' on the pillows. She's got a rill gift that way. But I done the managin' behind the scenes, an' it went off rill well, an' I got the minister to drop a flower on Jennie's coffin instead of a pinch o' dirt. An' one chair I did see to: right in the bay, near Jennie, I set 'Leven--I guess with just a kind of a blind feelin' that I wanted to get her _near_. Near the flowers or the singin' or what the minister said or,--oh, near the mystery an' G.o.d speakin' from the dead, like He does. Anyway, I shoved her into the bay window back o' the casket, an'

there I left her in behind a looped-back Nottingham--settin' in Jennie's shroud an' didn't either of 'em know it.

"It was a queer chapter for Doctor June to read, some said--but I guess holy things often is queer, only we're better cut out to see queer than holy. Anyway, his voice went all mellow and gentle, boomin' out soft an'

in his throat, all over the house. It was that about ..." Calliope quoted piecemeal:--

"'Awake, awake, put on thy strength ... put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ... shake thyself from the dust, arise and sit down ... loose thyself from the bonds of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion ... how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion: Thy G.o.d reigneth! Break forth into joy, sing together ... depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing ... be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord....'

"Sometimes a thing you've heard always will come at you sudden, like a star had fell on your very head. It was that way with me that day. 'Put on thy beautiful garments ...' I says over, 'Put 'em on--put 'em on!'

An' all the while I was seein' to the supper for the crowd that was goin' to be there--train relations an' all--I kep' thinkin' that over like a song--'Put 'em on--put 'em on--put 'em on!' An' it was in me yet, like a song had come to life there, when they'd all gone to the cemetery--'Leven with 'em--an' I'd got through straightenin' the chairs--or rather crookedin' 'em some into loops from funeral lines--an'

slipped over to my house, back way. For I ain't sunk so low as to be that sympathetic that I'll stay to supper after the funeral just because I've helped at it. There's a time to mourn an' there's a time to eat, an' you better do one with the bereaved an' slip home to your own b.u.t.t'ry shelf for the other, _I_ say.

"I was just goin' through the side yard to my house when I see 'em comin' back from the cemetery, an' I waited a little, lookin' to see what was sproutin' in the flower-bed. It was a beautiful, beautiful evenin'--when I think of it it seems I can breathe it in yet. It was 'most sunset, an' it was like the West was a big, blue bowl with eggs beat up in it, yolks an' whites, some gold an' some feathery. But the bowl wa'n't big enough, an' it had spilled over an' flooded the whole world yellowish, or all floatin' shinin' in the air. It was like the world had done the way the Bible said--put on its beautiful garments. I was thinkin' that when 'Leven come in the front gate. She was walkin'

fast, an' lookin' up, not down. Her cheeks was some pink, an' the light made the shroud all pinkey, an' she looked rill nice. An' I marched straight up to her, feelin' like I was swimmin' in that lovely light:--

"''Leven,' I says, ''Leven--it's like the whole world was made over to-night, ain't it?'

"'Yes,' says she--an' not 'Huh?' at all.

"'Seems like another world than when we met on the street corner, don't it?' I says.

"'Yes,' she says again, noddin'--an' I thought how she'd stood there on the sidewalk, hungry an' her hands all black, an' believin' she couldn't do anything at all. An' it seemed like I hed sort o' scrabbled her up an' held her over a precipice, an' said to her: 'See the dead. Look at yourself. Come forth--come forth! Clean up--do somethin' to help, anything, if it's only tackin' on evergreens an' doin' the Dead's hair up becomin'--' oh, I s'pose, rilly, I was sayin' to her: 'Put on thy beautiful garments. Awake. Put on thy strength.' Only it come out some differ'nt from me than it come from Isaiah.

"I took a-hold of her hand--quite clean by the second day's washin', though I ain't much given to the same (_not_ meanin' second day's washin's). I didn't know quite what I was goin' to say, but just then I looked up Daphne Street, an' I see 'em all sprinkled along comin' from the funeral--neighbours an' friends an' just folks--an' most of 'em livin' in Friendship peaceful an'--barrin' slopovers--doin' the level best they could. Not all of 'em hearin' the Bell, you understand, nor knowin' it by name if they did hear. But in little ways, an' because it was sec.u.n.t nature, just helpin', helpin', helpin' ... Mis'

Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, Liddy Ember, Abagail Arnold an' her husband, that was alive then, hurryin' to open the home bakery to catch the funeral trade on the funeral's way back, Amanda an' Timothy Toplady rattlin' by in the wagon an' 'most likely sc.r.a.ppin' over the new springs ... an' all of 'em salt good at heart.

"''Leven,' I says, out o' the fulness o' the lump in my throat, 'stay here with us. Find somethin' honest you can do, an' stay here an' do it.

Mebbe,' I told her, 'you could start dressin' the Dead's hair. An'

_help_ us,' I says, 'help us.'

"She looked up in my eyes quick, an' my heart stood still. An' then it sunk down an' down.

"'I want to go back ...' she says, 'I want to go back ...' but I'm glad to remember that even for a minute I didn't doubt G.o.d's position, because I remember thinkin' swift that if Him an' I had failed it wasn't for no inscrutable reason o' His, but He was feelin' just as bad over it as I was, an' worse.... 'I want to go back,' 'Leven finished up, 'an'

get Big Lil, too.'

"Oh, an' I tell you the song in me just crowded the rest o' me out of existence. I felt like a psalm o' David, bein' sung. I hadn't dreamed she'd be like that--I hadn't dreamed it. Why, some folks, Christian an'

in a pew, never come to the part o' their lives where they want to go back an' get a Big Lil, too.

"We stood there a little while, an' I talked to her some, though I declare I couldn't tell you what I said. You can't--when the psalm feelin' comes. But we stood out there sort o' occupyin' April, till after the big blue bowl o' feathery eggs had been popped in the big black oven, an' it was rill dark.

"I forgot all about the shroud till we stepped in the house an' lit up, an' I see it. An' then it was like the song in me gettin' words, an' it come to me what it all was: How it rilly hadn't been Jennie's funeral so much as it had been 'Leven's--the 'Leven that was. But I didn't tell her--I never told her. An' she wore that shroud for most two years, mornin's, about her work."