BY
ROBERT HERRICK
AUTHOR OF "THE WEB OF LIFE," "THIS REAL WORLD," ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1904. Reprinted
October, 1904.
Norwood Press
J. B. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass, U.S.A.
TO
E. H. A.
AND
M. T. A.
THE COMMON LOT
From time to time the door opened to admit some tardyperson. Then the May sunlight without flooded the dim,long hall with a sudden radiance, even to the arched recessin the rear, where the coffin was placed. The late-comerssank into the crowd of black-coated men, who filled thehall to the broad stairs. Most of these were plainlydressed, with thick, grizzled beards and lined faces: theywere old hands from the Bridge Works on the West Side,where they had worked many years for Powers Jackson.In the parlors at the left of the hall there were morewomen than men, and more fashionable clothes than inthe hall. But the faces were scarcely less rugged andlined; for these friends of the old man who lay in thecoffin were mostly life-worn and gnarled, like himself.Their luxuries had not sufficed to hide the scars of thebattles they had waged with fortune.
When the minister ceased praying, the men and thewomen in the warm, flower-scented rooms movedgratefully, trying to get easier positions for their crampedbodies. Some members of a church choir, stationed atthe landing on the stairs, began to sing. Once more thedoor opened silently in the stealthy hands of theundertaker, and this time it remained open for several seconds.A woman entered, dressed in fashionable widow's mourning.She moved deliberately, as if she realized exactlythe full effect of her entrance at that moment among allthese heated, tired people. The men crowded in thehall made way for her instinctively, so that she mightenter the dining-room, to the right of the coffin, wherethe family and a few intimate friends of the dead manwere seated. Here, a young man, the nephew of PowersJackson, rose and surrendered his chair to the prettywidow, whispering:—
"Take this, Mrs. Phillips! I am afraid there is nothinginside."
She took his place by the door with a little deprecatorysmile, which said many things at the same time: "I amvery late, I know; but I really couldn't help it! Youwill forgive me, won't you?"
And also: "You have come to be a handsome youngman! When I saw you last you were only a raw boy,just out of college! Now we must reckon with you, asthe old man's heir,—the heir of so much money!"
Then again: "It is a long time since we met over thereacross the sea. And I have had my sorrows, too!"
All this her face seemed to speak swiftly, especially tothe young man, whose attention she had quite distracted,as indeed she had disturbed every one in the other roomsby her progress through the hall. By the time she hadsettled herself, and made a first survey of the scene, thehymn had come to an end, and the minister's deep voicebroke forth in the words of ancient promise, "I am theResurrection and the Life"...
At this note of triumph the pretty widow's interruptionwas forgo