“I know,” Hud nodded. “They’re bad business—funerals. There’ve been a lot of funerals around here since you went west.” He saluted with his forefinger and walked away to the Duffey carryall. Eva Duffey was already in the back seat and Mrs. Huddlestone was climbing in beside her.

Finis Sketchley had put a long smock of blue-checked denim over his black suit, and was helping the workman to fill in the grave. He shook his head at Dan. “This is a good lot,” he said, winking spasmodically. “High and dry. There ain’t any trees for the birds to drop stuff all over the tombstones.”

Dan looked down at the rounded slabs, all of them washed and bleached by years of exposure. Telitha F., devoted wife of Pentland Bale. Daniel S. Bale. Mary N., wife of Daniel S. Bale. Baby. Rest, Darling … Grandma, father, mother and the baby sister who had died four days after she was born. And he couldn’t remember any of them. This was now a world in which he stood with no living flesh of his own. “It would be different,” he thought, “if I were married. Maybe it would be.”

The last of the carriages was rolling back to town down the hill; only the hearse and a light wagon remained. Fifty yards away, two men were shoveling out another grave, working leisurely, pipes in their mouths, their knees already out of sight behind the brown embankment of earth. That must be the one for Adolph Bearman. Yes, it was on the Bearman lot … Died after Chancellorsville. Bale thought, “There was no earthly need of that.” Adolph Bearman had been grinning and mild-eyed, selling apples and grapes from door to door. Wounds received at Chancellorsville.

He said to himself, “Somebody’s to blame, and I hope they suffer for it.” At least these dead, tragic and prosaic, cancer-eaten and bullet-pierced and consumptive alike—at least they could rest quietly on the rim of that green cup. No harm should ever come to them.

Meadow larks flung their watery seven-notes high and low. Dan walked out through the ugly brick gateway. There was a sign.

ALL PERSONS FOUND USING FIREARMS IN THESE GROUNDS WILL BE PROSECUTED WITH THE UTMOST VIGOR OF THE LAW.

A good thing. Keep youngsters from hunting pigeons and quail up there …

His hat had been left in the carriage and now he combed eagerly at his thick hair with clawing fingers, ruffling it, cutting loose furrows until his finger nails scraped on the scalp underneath. His heavy coat was stifling him. He took it off, and the vest underneath, and put watch and purse and tobacco into his pants pockets. When he came to a convenient covert of berry bushes he stuffed the discarded clothing there. Then he walked on down the Taneytown road, opening his shirt collar as he went.