ery snow lay without melting
on the caps and shoulders of the men and the shawls of the women.
Jelinek spoke in a persuasive tone to Mrs. Shimerda, and then turned to
grandfather.

'She says, Mr. Burden, she is very glad if you can make some prayer for
him here in English, for the neighbours to understand.'

Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat, and
the other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still
remember it. He began, 'Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows
what the sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him
and Thee.' He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the
stranger come to a far country, God would forgive him and soften his
heart. He recalled the promises to the widow and the fatherless, and
asked God to smooth the way before this widow and her children, and to
'incline the hearts of men to deal justly with her.' In closing, he said
we were leaving Mr. Shimerda at 'Thy judgment seat, which is also Thy
mercy seat.'

All the time he was praying, grandmother watched him through the black
fingers of her glove, and when he said 'Amen,' I thought she looked
satisfied with him. She turned to Otto and whispered, 'Can't you start a
hymn, Fuchs? It would seem less heathenish.'

Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her
suggestion, then began, 'Jesus, Lover of my Soul,' and all the men and
women took it up after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has
made me remember that white waste and the little group of people; and
the bluish air, full of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying:

'While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high.'

Years afterward, when the open-grazing days were over, and the red grass
had been ploughed under and under until it had almost disappeared from
the prairie; when all the fields were under fence, and the roads
no longer ran about like wild things, but followed the surveyed
section-lines, Mr. Shimerda's grave was still there, with a sagging
wire fence around it, and an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had
predicted, Mrs. Shimerda never saw the roads going over his head. The
road from the north curved a little to the east just there, and the road
from the west swung out a little to the south; so that the grave, with
its tall red grass that was never mowed, was like a little island; and
at twilight, under a new moon or the clear evening star, the