GRAVES IN THE THICKET. 165 



pose that when the farm was sold, the title to the graves 

 was reserved. And so it happens that on some farms 

 there are several burial-places of different families. And 

 I have often found little groups of graves in the most 

 out-of-the-way places, overgrown with bushes, in dense 

 thickets, evidently unvisited for many years, apparently 

 forgotten utterly. No one lives to tend them. No one 

 cares for the memory of the sleeping family. It is some- 

 what curious to stand by such graves. One recalls in 

 imagination a distant past, and wonders again and again 

 as he thinks how wholly the generations of men pass 

 out of memory. There were tears and sobs and all the 

 emotions of sorrowing human nature once by these 

 graves. As each was opened and closed, and a new 

 treasure committed to the ground, the same grief was 

 manifested, the same old mournful utterances were heard 

 where now the bird sings unmolested. The young and 

 the old died then as now. In the farm-house, which 

 strangers occupy, there have been sad scenes enacted in 

 old days. 



As I pressed my way through dense cover on the bank 

 of the brook, I found my passage blocked by a row of 

 grave-stones. The bushes were tangled and thick above, 

 and the moss was green and wet on them, and no in- 

 scription was visible. I picked up a stone, and rubbed 

 it over the surface of one of them, and so there began to 

 be visible enough to show me that it was the resting- 

 place of Faith - , who died in 1772, aged eighteen 

 years. There were some lines below, hidden where the 

 strong stems of the bushes were crowded close to the 

 stone, and I could not press them back sufficiently far to 

 clean the moss and read the epitaph. I could only 

 make out parts of some words, but I discovered the let- 



