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SPERIMt
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.
Vol. XXVI
LINCOLN, NKKKASKA, .JANUARY 22, ISOfi.
No
nusic.
A "lim.it'(l world", becalmed it lay
Through all the night, at break of day
A song hurst forth, the Stars bunt lovn
To place upon earth's brow, her crown.
Liitnii: C. Hark.
Here and There.
Tho tilings we liuvo not done they
are the ghosts that walk with us. They
are the only ghosts, for why should things
that have been real, come back to wander
in shadows. They have been; they will
always lie. It is vhe things that have
never boon that haunt us.
She wa dead . The room looked large
with tho bod taken away, and the women
sat in a dumb circle looking at the white
floor, tho bit of carpet, the tiny stove set
on four slonos. They talked in whispers
and stopped suddenly when a wagon rat
tled to the door; a wagon that was "bring
ing from other houses as tiny, chairs "by
twos and throes, chairs without backs,
mended, u n painted, that were carried in
one by om until the little room and
Kitc-hon wore filled. A space was left
Wide tho small round table. No one
looked at it, nor at the door that opened
into the bod room, until a heavy, long
Wndk wagon clattered to the stops and
'od against them, shaking the door.
Some of tho men, who were standing
Hi'onnd the bedding, hoaped with the bed
u the ground, came around to the front
oor stumbling as they came over the
toulhay that banked the house high up
10 tnded sng. Thay carried into
"6 roorri fche long rough box, smeared
ver with brown rpaint in uneven strokes,
nomeitan casing at the corners scraped
gainst the door and the little stove, as
they moved into the bed room.
Presently the little sister-in-law who
had taken care of the dead woman, came
out of tho bed room and took'a piece of
comb quickly from under the cracked
mirror.
Then in a moment the coffin was lifted
back into the room more slowly, heavily,
and set on two chairs beside the table. It
filled the room so close that we must
need? look down on the face and white
flowers-our flowers-on the lid. It was
all there was left now to do. We had
thought it all.
The gowned minis-ter entered and read
the service slowly. The little sister-in-law
cried softly and the young husband -sat
with his face in his hands.
It was then that we began to remember.
AVho would there be to sing? No one.
Why had we not thought?
She had loved music. She herself had
had a sweet voice she was not yet
twenty. "But I sing hoarse now," she
told us once. If we had only remem
bered. But we had not. The minister read
on . The neighbor women sat with grave
sad faces, turned on that face which
seemed older than they all, with their
wind-reddened cheeks and wet dropped
eye-lids. Beside the coffin a woman sat
with a child in her arms. It slept, and
its heavy breathing filled the room and
sounded loud in the solemn pauses.
So it ended, and in hard grating silence
they closed the lid over the course edges
where carpet tacks held the lining fast,
it was done and the man sitting in his
ragged coat at the coffin head moved
not. Only the sister-in-law sobbed un-
