As a child, these graveyards had no definite meaning to me, but I never went by them after nightfall if I could possibly go any other way, especially if I chanced to be alone. If I could not avoid going this way, I always kept well to the other side of the road, and walked or ran as fast as I could, with scarcely a glance toward the silent yard and the white stones that gleamed so grimly in the dusk. Sometimes a number of us boys would go through the yard in broad daylight, but even then we preferred almost any other spot. I cannot recall when a sense of the real meaning of a churchyard came full upon me. I have no doubt that I unconsciously felt the gloom of the place before I fully understood what it really meant. In the summer-time we children were usually taken through the graveyard on our way home from church; but after the long services even this seemed a pleasant spot. On Sunday we were not afraid, for all the worshippers went home this way. The yards were filled with evergreen trees carefully trimmed and clipped, with here and there a weeping-willow drooping its doleful branches to the ground. Why these trees were chosen for the churchyard, I cannot tell; but I have never since seen an evergreen or a weeping-willow that did not take me back to that little spot. The footpaths wound in and out, and ran off in all directions to reach each separate plat of ground that the thrifty neighbors had set apart as the final resting-place which would be theirs until the resurrection came. Most of them firmly believed in this great day,—or at least they told themselves they did. Around the yard was a neat white fence, always kept in good repair; and the gates were carefully locked except on the Sabbath day. Many times I saw the old sexton wait until the last mourner had slowly left the yard, and then carefully lock the gate and go away. It seemed to me as if he were locking the gate to keep his silent tenants in, like a jailer who turns the bolts upon the prisoners in their cells. As a little child, I used to look at the sexton half in awe, and I almost feared to come into his uncanny presence. I never could think that he was quite like other men, or else he could not shovel the dirt so carelessly into the open grave. I had never seen anyone but the old sexton fill the grave and smooth the little mound that was always made from the dirt that was left over after the coffin was put down; and I used to wonder, in my childish way, how the sexton himself would get buried when he was dead.