Four years ago Mrs. Wilson had taken her from the orphan asylum in town . Mrs. Wilson lived just this side of the hill from the graveyard , and everybody in North Point called her a `` crank . '' They pitied any child she took , they said . It would be worked to death and treated like a slave . At first they tried to pump Freda concerning Mrs. Wilson 's treatment of her , but Freda was not to be pumped . She was a quiet little mite , with big , wistful dark eyes that had a disconcerting fashion of looking the gossips out of countenance . But if Freda had been disposed to complain , the North Point people would have found out that they had been only too correct in their predictions . `` Mrs. Wilson , '' Freda said timidly that night , `` why have n't we got a grave ? '' Mrs. Wilson averred that such a question gave her the `` creeps . '' `` You ought to be very thankful that we have n't , '' she said severely . `` That Graveyard Day is a heathenish custom , anyhow . They make a regular picnic of it , and it makes me sick to hear those school girls chattering about what they mean to plant , each one trying to outblow the other . If I had a grave there , I would n't make a flower garden of it ! '' Freda did not go to the graveyard the next day , although it was a holiday . But in the evening , when everybody had gone home , she crept over the hill and through the beech grove to see what had been done . The plots were all very neat and prettily set out with plants and bulbs . Some perennials were already in bud . The grave of Katie Morris ' great-uncle , who had been dead for forty years , was covered with blossoming purple pansies . Every grave , no matter how small or old , had its share of promise -- every grave except one . Freda came across it with a feeling of surprise .
It was away down XXXXX the lower corner where there were no plots .
If about ago although except for in of that with