Our very faithlessness has made it fair. There was a time when we
were a little ashamed of it. We regarded it with affection, indeed, but
affection of the sort accorded some rusty relative who has lain too
supine in the rut of years. Thus, with growing ambition came, in due
course, the project of a new burying-ground. This we dignified, even in
common speech; it was always grandly "the Cemetery." While it lay
unrealized in the distance, the home of our forbears fell into neglect,
and Nature marched in, according to her lavishness, and adorned what we
ignored. The white alder crept farther and farther from its bounds;
tansy and wild rose rioted in profusion, and soft patches of violets
smiled to meet the spring. Here were, indeed, great riches, "a little
of everything" that pasture life affords: a hardy bed of checkerberry,
crimson strawberries nodding on long stalks, and in one sequestered
corner the beloved Linnaea. It seemed a consecrated pasture shut off
from daily use, and so given up to pleasantness that you could scarcely
walk there without setting foot on some precious outgrowth of the
spring, or pushing aside a summer loveliness better made for wear.
Ambition had its fulfillment. We bought our Cemetery, a large, green
tract, quite square, and lying open to the sun.
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