Sabethany died, and they buried her at the foot of the hill in our
graveyard before I could remember. But her people thought heaps of
her, and spent much money on the biggest tombstone in the cemetery, and
planted pinies and purple phlox on her, and went every Sunday to visit
her. When they moved away, they missed her so, they decided to come
back and take her along. The men were at work, and Leon and I went to
see what was going on. They told us, and said we had better go away,
because possibly things might happen that children would sleep better
not to see. Strange how a thing like that makes you bound you will
see. We went and sat on the fence and waited. Soon they reached
Sabethany, but they could not seem to get her out. They tried, and
tried, and at last they sent for more men. It took nine of them to
bring her to the surface. What little wood was left, they laid back to
see what made her so fearfully heavy, and there she was turned to solid
stone. They couldn't chip a piece off her with the shovel. Mother
always said, "For goodness sake, don't let your mouth hang open," and
as a rule we kept ours shut; but you should have seen Leon's when he
saw Sabethany wouldn't chip off, and no doubt mine was as bad.
"When Gabriel blows his trumpet, and the dead arise and come forth,
what on earth will they do with Sabethany?" I gasped. "Why, she
couldn't fly to Heaven with wings a mile wide, and what use could they
make of her if she got there?"
"I can't see a thing she'd be good for except a hitching post," said
Leon, "and I guess they don't let horses in. Let's go home."
He acted sick and I felt that way; so we went, but the last glimpse of
Sabethany remained with me.
As my head went down that day, I saw that Miss Amelia looked exactly
like her. You would have needed a pick-ax or a crowbar to flake off
even a tiny speck of her. When I had waited for my head to be cracked,
until I had time to remember that a Crusader didn't dodge and hide, I
looked up, and there she stood with the ruler lifted; but now she had
turned just the shade of the wattles on our fightingest turkey gobbler.
"Won't you please forgive me?"
I never knew I had said it until I heard it, and then the only way to
be sure was because no one else would have been likely to speak at that
time.
Miss Amelia's arm dropped and she glared at me. I wondered whether I
ever would understand grown people; I doubted if they understood
themselves, for after turning to stone in a second--father said it had
taken Sabethany seven years--and changing to gobbler red, Miss Amelia
suddenly began to laugh. To laugh, of all things! And then, of
course, every one else just yelled. I was so mortified I dropped my
head again and began to cry as I never would if she'd hit me.
"Don't feel badly!" said Miss Amelia. "Certainly, I'll forgive you. I
see you had no intention of giving offense, so none is taken. Get out
your book and study hard on another lesson."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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