"Peace, my friends," he commanded with authority. "Let no man disturb
the peace of the dead."
And, unwaveringly, he went on to the end of the service.
So little Minnie Munn rests beside the mother who waited for her. No
ghosts have risen to protest her presence there. The man who loved her
comes back to Our Square from time to time, at which times there are
fresh flowers on Minnie's mound, below the headstone reading: "Beloved
Wife of Christopher Hines." But the elegiac verse has never appeared. I
must record also the disappearance of that tiny bronze cockleshell,
outward bound for "Far Ports," from the Bonnie Lassie's window, though
Mr. Hines was wrong in his theory that it could be bought--like all else
--"at a price." By the way, I believe that he has modified that theory.
As for Bartholomew Storrs, he is prone to take the other side of the
Square when he sees me on my accustomed bench. In repose his face is as
grim as ever, but I have seen him smile at a child. Probably the weight
of our collective sins upon his conscience is less irksome, now that he
has a crime of his own to balance them. For forgery and falsification of
an official record is a real crime, which might send him to jail. But
even that grim and judicial God of his worship ought to welcome him into
heaven on the strength of it.
I believe that Bartholomew sleeps o' nights now.
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