THE COUNTRY GRAVEYARD 263 



Though bowed with cruel grief, yet is there not 

 a pleasure in being able to lay our loved ones who 

 have lived out life's fitful dream in the beautiful, 

 well kept, flower laden cemetery, with the knowl- 

 edge that, through the years, though we be far 

 away, it will always be well cared for? 



Oh! the tragedy and the sadness of the country 

 graveyard! A disgrace to the American farmer 

 that ought to make him blush with shame. 



There is not a farm community in all this broad 

 land of ours but what contains this disgrace. We 

 see these yards grown up with weeds and under- 

 brush until we can scarcely see through them to 

 the tottering tombstone, upon which is inscribed, 

 " Sacred to the Memory," a mockery to the dead, 

 a stinging disgrace to the living. Is it any wonder 

 that men and women fear death, knowing that 

 their bodies are to be laid in such neglected 

 places ? 



The author's parents are sleeping in a beautiful 

 city cemetery, although they were pioneers and 

 lived their lives upon the farm. A brother and 

 sister died more than a half century ago, and were 

 laid in a neglected country churchyard. They died 

 in early pioneer days when our parents were busy 

 clearing the forests and making the wilderness to 

 bloom and fruit with the products of the husband- 

 man. The struggle our pioneers were compelled 

 to undergo led to neglect in many of the things of 

 life. So it is not strange that the graveyard was 

 neglected. When the last parent died the author 

 went back to the ancestral home from which he 

 had wandered years before. Those are the times 

 when family ties are strengthened and family 



