much rain or else
too little. It was either drought or flood. Dark swarms of wild ducks were
in all the ponds; V-shaped flocks of geese and brants screamed overhead,
and down in the slough cranes danced a solemn minuet.

Again and again we looked for the coming something, and I began to cry,
fearing we had been left there, forgotten of Fate.

At last we went out by the barn and, with much boosting, I climbed to the
top of the haystack and my sister followed. And still we watched.

"There they come!" exclaimed my sister.

"There they come!" I echoed, and clapped two red, chapped hands for joy.

Away across the prairie, miles and miles away, was a winding string of
wagons, a dozen perhaps, one right behind another. We watched until we
could make out our own white horse, Bob, and then we slid down the hickory
pole that leaned against the stack, and made our way across the spongy sod
to the burying-ground that stood on a knoll half a mile away.

We got there before the procession, and saw a great hole, with square
corners, dug in the ground. It was half-full of water, and a man in bare
feet, with trousers rolled to his knees, was working industriously to bail
it out.

The wagons drove up and stopped. And out of one of them four men lifted a
long box and set it down beside the hole where the man still bailed and
dipped. The box was opened and in it was Si Johnson. Si lay very still,
and his face was very blue, and his clothes were very black, save for his
shirt, which was very white, and his hands were folded across his breast,
just so, and held awkwardly in the stiff fingers was a little New
Testament. We all looked at the blue face, and the women cried softly. The
men took off their hats while the preacher prayed, and then we sang,
"There'll be no more parting there."

The lid of the box was nailed down, lines were taken from the harness of
one of the teams standing by and were placed around the long box, and it
was lowered with a splash into the hole. Then several men seized spades
and the clods fell with clatter and echo. The men shoveled very hard,
filling up the hole, and when it was full and heaped up, they patted it
all over with the backs of their spades.

Everybody remained until this was done, and then we got into the wagons
and drove away.

Nearly a dozen of the folks came over to our house for dinner, including
the preacher, and they all talked of the man who was dead and how he came
to die.

Only