Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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It seems that one evening when Aunt Sarah and my cousin Clothilde's mother, Georgianna, were alone at Wickford Point, the Kennedys' hay wagon came down with a packing case that had been left on the main road by a carter from Boston. Mr. Moses Kennedy, who was a Quaker with correct sympathies, helped the girls unload the box in the south hay barn. Aunt Sarah went to the shop for tools and Aunt Georgianna hurried to the kitchen to boil some cracked cocoa. When Aunt Sarah and Moses Kennedy opened up the packing case they found a Negro man inside, just as they had expected, but the case had come from Boston wrong-side-up; the Negro was quite dead.

Under the circumstances there was only one thing to do. The body must be buried at once without publicity. They discussed the idea of getting Mr. Wade, the Congregational clergyman, but decided against it because Mr. Wade might talk. Instead Aunt Sarah called to Georgianna to bring from shelves in the back parlor library their father's copy of The Ship Master's Assistant, which contained a service for burials at sea. Moses got a shovel and a mattock out of the tool shed and dug a deep grave in the new orchard. There was some dispute about reading the burial service, which had the Popish taint of the Church of England, but all three of them agreed upon it eventually. It was dark by then. Aunt Sarah got a ship's lantern and held it while Moses read the words. Then they laid the sods back carefully. Of course it was important not to mark the grave.