Carey often stopped at the bank to deliver a message to Josiah
Graves, the manager, who was choir-master, treasurer, and churchwarden.
"Because," said the Man Leaning on a Spade, "I belong to the Gravediggers' National Extortion Society, and we have decided to limit the production of
graves and get more money for the reduced output.
All the old
graves were sunken in, there was not a tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards stag- gered over the
graves, leaning for support and finding none.
"Yonder is the grave-island, the silent isle; yonder also are the
graves of my youth.
'"What man wanders among
graves and churchyards on such a night as this?" cried the goblin.
Here and there among the bushes were small inclosures containing
graves, sometimes no more than one.
- THE MAN WHO LOVES NOT
GRAVES AND COFFINS AND SKULLS.
Many human beings have gone to their
graves unattended by as much real regret as followed that one gray pussy cat to his.
Consequently, they do not dig
graves, they blast them out with power and fuse.
The minister bowed for the last time to the altar and the still fresh
graves; then, followed by his assistant, he slowly took the road back to the presbytery.
'I warrant now,' he said, 'that you think all those are used in making
graves.'
He was of a race that had once been lords on the shores of the salt lake, and his wishes had led him back to a people who dwelt about the
graves of his fathers.