120 Wed Life in a Southern County. 
his own use, brings home his furniture. After a while 
his own children go for a ride in it, and play in it 
when stationary in the shed. In the painful ending 
the waggon carries the weak-kneed old man in pity 
to and from the old town for his weekly store of 
goods, or mayhap for his weekly dole of that staff of 
life his aged teeth can hardly grind. And many a 
plain coffin has the old waggon carried to the distant 
churchyard on the side of the hill. It isa cold spot— 
as life, too, was cold and hard; yet in the spring the 
daisies will come, and the thrushes will sing on the 
bough. 
Built at first of seasoned wood, kept out of the 
weather under cover, repainted, and taken care of, the 
waggon lasts a lifetime. Many times repaired, the 
old ship outlasts its owner—his name on it is painted 
out. But that step is not taken for years: there 
seems to be a superstitious dislike to obliterating the 
old name, as if the dead would resent it, and there it 
often remains till it becomes illegible. Sometimes the 
second owner, too, goes, and the name fresh painted 
is that of the third. When at last it becomes too 
shaky for farm use, it is perhaps bought by some 
poor working haulier, who has a hole cut in the 
bottom with moveable cover, and uses it to bring 
down flints from the hills to mend the roads. But if 
any of the old folk live, they will not sell the ancient 
vessel: it stands behind the rickyard under the 
elms till the rain rots the upper work, and it is then 
