Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV I Seem to remember the old yard and see that the sun was come forth, and that the wet drops seemed to smile and twinkle, and that o'erhead the sun shone in patches through the thick trees' tops. I seem to remember all of this, but before me comes a great cloud and this is the black box. I did not know them that bore it. They were villagers, but no friendly faces that I had known. I stood watching, and idly played with the larkspurs that I had been plucking. I remember, too, that great wonder filled me. This, then, was a deader. I never before had seen such a box. It was black and I was frightened, for the faces of them that bore it were solemn. The sexton, hearing their steps, came forth and pointed the way. Something seemed to start in my breast, and I do not know why, but Mrs. Gifford's words came to me: There will be no Christian there. I seemed to connect the black box with these words. I stepped along the wet path until I had come to the strange group who bore the box and I timidly called. One of them looked at me and I asked: Is this the deader? They looked one to the other and did not answer. Mrs. Gifford said, I went on, that no Christian would be there. I am a heathen. They smiled and I remember that their faces were not kind, and that I had a queer feeling about the box, and I felt that they were heathens, too. What's in there? I asked, and pointed to the box. They stopped and I went up and touched it, and I remember the cloth was thin and I could feel the splinters under the weave. I do not know why I did the thing that I did do, but I suddenly laid my larkspur upon the box, andI remember that a great white butterfly soared above and darted down and rested upon them. They did not notice all of this, but went on and I...