We stopped at Mr. Jelnik's house, and the man Daoud appeared in
answer to a low-voiced summons and fetched me a most beautiful
shawl, which I found extremely comfortable. A stately and stoical
personage was Daoud, unlike shy black Achmet, who hid himself from
observation so thoroughly that people in Hyndsville were not aware
of his existence. I sat on the steps while for Jessamine Hynds was
fetched a length of canvas, a linen sheet, and a gray army blanket.
Achmet appeared with spades. And so we set out.
The old cemetery in Hyndsville, unlike the newer one in which folks
take a sort of ghastly pride, one lot differing from another lot in
glory, is an unpretentious place, enclosed by crumbling walls, the
iron gates of which have rusted ajar. It is a grassy, bird-haunted,
tree-shaded spot, with some dozen or so old family vaults, some
modest monuments that bear stately names, some raised marble slabs
supported on carved and slender legs, like Death's own little
card-tables, some stones let flat into the earth, with names and
dates long since erased by rain and wind and fallen leaf. Nobody
comes here any more. Sophronisba Scarlett was the first and last to
be interred in the old cemetery within the memory of the present
generation.
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