"I should think we might," I said meditatively. "When people have gone
to Jesus--they must be very glad!"

Preston burst out with an expression of hope that Miss Pinshon would
"do something" for me; and again would have led me away; but I was not
ready to go. My eye, roving beyond the white marble and the low brick
wall, had caught what seemed to be a number of meaner monuments,
scattered among the pine trees and spreading down the slope of the
ground on the further side, where it fell off towards another dell. In
one place a bit of board was set up; further on a cross; then I saw a
great many bits of board and crosses; some more and some less
carefully made; and still as my eye roved about over the ground they
seemed to start up to view in every direction; too low and too humble
and too near the colour of the fallen pine leaves to make much show
unless they were looked for. I asked what they all were.

"Those? Oh, those are for the people, you know."

"The people?" I repeated.

"Yes, the people--the hands."

"There are a great many of them," I remarked.

"Of course," said Preston. "You see, Daisy, there have been I don't
know how many hundreds of hands here for a great many years, ever
since mother's grandfather's time."

"I should think," said I, looking at the little board slips and
crosses among the pine cones on the ground,--"I should think they
would like to have something nicer to put up over their graves."

"Nicer? those are good enough," said Preston. "Good enough for them."

"I should think they would like to have something better," I said.
"Poor people at the North have nicer monuments, I know. I never saw
such monuments in my life."

"Poor people!" cried Preston. "Why these are the _hands_, Daisy,--the
coloured people. What do they want of monuments?"

"Don't they care?" said I, wondering.

"Who cares if they care? I don't know whether they care," said
Preston, quite out of patience with me, I thought.

"Only, if they cared, I should think they would have something nicer,"
I said. "Where do they all go to church, Preston?"

"Who?" said Preston.

"These people?"

"What people? The families along the river do you mean?"

"No, no," said I; "I mean _our_ people--these people; the hands. You
say there are hundreds of them. Where do they go to church?"

I faced Preston now in my eagerness; for the little board crosses and
the forlorn look of the whole burying-ground on the side of the hill