Chapter: MR. SHIMERDA lay dead in the barn four days, and on the fifth they buried
him. All day Friday Jelinek was off with Ambrosch digging the grave,
chopping out the frozen earth with old axes. On Saturday we breakfasted
before daylight and got into the wagon with the coffin. Jake and Jelinek
went ahead on horseback to cut the body loose from the pool of blood in
which it was frozen fast to the ground.

When grandmother and I went into the Shimerdas' house, we found the
women-folk alone; Ambrosch and Marek were at the barn. Mrs. Shimerda sat
crouching by the stove, Antonia was washing dishes. When she saw me she
ran out of her dark corner and threw her arms around me. "Oh, Jimmy," she
sobbed, "what you tink for my lovely papa!" It seemed to me that I could
feel her heart breaking as she clung to me.

Mrs. Shimerda, sitting on the stump by the stove, kept looking over her
shoulder toward the door while the neighbors were arriving. They came on
horseback, all except the postmaster, who brought his family in a wagon
over the only broken wagon-trail. The Widow Steavens rode up from her farm
eight miles down the Black Hawk road. The cold drove the women into the
cave-house, and it was soon crowded. A fine, sleety snow was beginning to
fall, and every one was afraid of another storm and anxious to have the
burial over with.

Grandfather and Jelinek came to tell Mrs. Shimerda that it was time to
start. After bundling her mother up in clothes the neighbors had brought,
Antonia put on an old cape from our house and the rabbit-skin hat her
father had made for her. Four men carried Mr. Shimerda's box up the hill;
Krajiek slunk along behind them. The coffin was too wide for the door, so
it was put down on the slope outside. I slipped out from the cave and
looked at Mr. Shimerda. He was lying on his side, with his knees drawn up.
His body was draped in a black shawl, and his head was bandaged in white
muslin, like a mummy's; one of his long, shapely hands lay out on the
black cloth; that was all one could see of him.

Mrs. Shimerda came out and placed an open prayer-book against the body,
making the sign of the cross on the bandaged head with her fingers.
Ambrosch knelt down and made the same gesture, and after him Antonia and
Marek. Yulka hung back. Her mother pushed her forward, and kept saying
something to her over and over. Yulka knelt down, shut her eyes, and put
out her hand a little way, but she drew it back and began to cry wildly.
She was afraid to touch the bandage. Mrs. Shimerda caught her by the
shoulders and pushed her toward the coffin, but grandmother interfered.

"No, Mrs. Shimerda," she said firmly, "I won't stand by and see that child
frightened into spasms. She is too little to understand what you want of
her. Let her alone."

At a look from grandfather, Fuchs and Jelinek placed the lid on the box,
and began to nail it down over Mr. Shimerda. I was afraid to look at
Antonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to
her.

The coffin was put into the wagon. We drove slowly away, against the fine,
icy snow which cut our faces like a sand-blast. When we reached the grave,
it looked a very little spot in that snow-covered waste. The men took the
coffin to the edge of the hole and lowered it with ropes. We stood about
watching them, and the powdery snow lay without melting on the caps and
shoulders of the men and the shawls of the women. Jelinek spoke in a
persuasive tone to Mrs. Shimerda, and then turned to grandfather.

"She says, Mr. Burden, she is very glad if you can make some prayer for
him here in English, for the neighbors to understand."

Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat, and the
other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still remember
it. He began, "Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the
sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee."
He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come
to a far country, God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled
the promises to the widow and the fatherless, and asked God to smooth the
way before this widow and her children, and to "incline the hearts of men
to deal justly with her." In closing, he said we were leaving Mr. Shimerda
at "Thy judgment seat, which is also Thy mercy seat."

All the time he was praying, grandmother watched him through the black
fingers of her glove, and when he said "Amen," I thought she looked
satisfied with him. She turned to Otto and whispered, "Can't you start a
hymn, Fuchs? It would seem less heathenish."

Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her
suggestion, then began, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," and all the men and
women took it up after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has
made me remember that white waste and the little group of people; and the
bluish air, full of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying:--

  "While the nearer waters roll,
  While the tempest still is high."



Years afterward, when the open-grazing days were over, and the red grass
had been ploughed under and under until it had almost disappeared from the
prairie; when all the fields were under fence, and the roads no longer ran
about like wild things, but followed the surveyed section-lines, Mr.
Shimerda's grave was still there, with a sagging wire fence around it, and
an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had predicted, Mrs. Shimerda
never saw the roads going over his head. The road from the north curved a
little to the east just there, and the road from the west swung out a
little to the south; so that the grave, with its tall red grass that was
never mowed, was like a little island; and at twilight, under a new moon
or the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft gray
rivers flowing past it. I never came upon the place without emotion, and
in all that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim
superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and
still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence--the
error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along
which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver
passed the wooden cross, I am sure, without wishing well to the sleeper.

 After four days, Mr. Shimerda is laid into the ground. Jelinek and Ambrosch have to work at the grave all day long to dig the hole in the frozen ground. All the neighbors come despite the weather. Jim catches a glimpse of the body before it is buried. The only identifiable part is the hand which looks as it always did. After everyone in the family prays over the body, Mrs. Shimerda tells young Julka to touch the body and bless it. She is terrified to do so and Mrs. Shimerda attempts to force her to touch the body. Mrs. Burden stops her and tells her she will not stand by and watch her frighten the child into doing something she doesnt even understand. Someone asks Mr. Burden to speak over the grave. Jim remembers the prayer vividly. He says only God can judge anyone and that if anyone present has been remiss toward a stranger to their country, God will forgive him and soften his heart. Then he asks God to help the widow and her family. Jim notices that his grandmother looks satisfied with her husband and what he has said. She asks Otto to sing a song so it wont seem so "heathenish."

