us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand,' ' I was already humming the hymn, trying to drown out Owen's voice-in advance. And when Mr. Wiggin and Mr. Merrill struggled to say, in unison, ' 'Grant us to entrust Tabitha to thy never-failing love,' ' I knew it was time; I almost covered my ears.
What else do we sing at an untimely death, what else but that catchy number that is categorized in The Pilgrim Hymnal as a favorite hymn of 'ascension and reign'-the popular 'Crown Him with Many Crowns,' a real organ-breaker? For when else, if not at the death of a loved one, do we most need to hear about the resurrection, about eternal life-about him who has risen! Crown him with man-y crowns, The Lamb up-on his throne; Hark! how the heaven-ly an-them drowns All mu-sic but its own;
A-wake, my soul, and sing Of him who died for thee, And hail him as thy match-less king Through all e-ter-ni-ty. Crown him the Lord of love; Be-hold his hands and side, Rich wounds, yet vis-i-ble above, In beau-ty glo-ri-fied; No an-gel in the sky Can ful-ly bear that sight, But down-ward bends his burn-ing eye At mys-ter-ies so bright.
But it was the third verse that especially inspired Owen. CROWN HIM THE LORD OF LIFE, WHO TRI-UMPHED O'ER THE GRAVE, AND ROSE VIC-TO-RIOUS IN THE STRIFE FOR THOSE HE CAME TO SAVE; HIS GLO-RIES NOW WE SING WHO DIED AND ROSE ON HIGH, WHO DIED, E-TER-NAL LIFE TO BRING, AND LIVES THAT DEATH MAY DIE. Even later, at the committal, I could hear Owen's awful voice ringing, when Mr. Wiggin said, ' 'In the midst of life we are in death.' ' But it was as if Owen were still humming the tune to 'Crown Him with Many Crowns,' because I seemed to hear nothing else; I think now that is the nature of hymns-they make us want to repeat them, and repeat them; they are a part of any service, and often the only part of a funeral service, that makes us feel everything is acceptable. Certainly, the burial is unacceptable; doubly so, in my mother's case, because-after the reassuring numbness of Kurd's Church-we were standing exposed, outside, on a typical Gravesend summer day, muggy and hot, with the inappropriate sounds of children's voices coming from the nearby high-school athletic fields. The cemetery, at the end of Linden Street, was within sight of the high school and the junior high school. I would attend the latter for only two years, but that was long enough to hear-many times-the remarks most frequently made by those students who were trapped in the study hall and seated nearest the windows that faced the cemetery: something to the effect that they would be less bored out there, in the graveyard.
'In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our sister Tabitha, and we commit her body to the ground,' Pastor Merrill said. That was when I noticed that Mr. Merrill's wife was holding her ears. She was terribly pale, except for the plump backs of her upper arms, which were painful to look at because her sunburn there was so intense; she wore a loose, sleeveless dress, more gray than black-but maybe she didn't have a proper black dress that was sleeveless, and she could not have been expected to force such a sunburn into sleeves. She swayed slightly, squinting her eyes. At first I thought that she held her ears due to some near-blinding pain inside her head; her dry blond hair looked ready to burst into flames, and one of her feet had strayed out of the straps of her sandals. One of her sickly children leaned against her hip. ' 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' ' said her husband, but Mrs. Merrill couldn't have heard him; she not only held her ears, she appeared to be pressing them into her skull. Hester had noticed. She stared at Mrs. Merrill as intently as I stared at her; all at once Hester's tough face was constricted by pain-or by some sudden, painful memory-and she, too, covered her ears. But the tune to 'Crown Him with Many Crowns' was still in my head; I didn't hear what Mrs. Merrill and Hester heard. I thought they were both guilty of extraordinary rudeness toward Pastor Merrill, who was doing his best with the benediction-although he was rushing now, and even the usually unflappable Captain Wiggin was shaking his head, as if to rid his ears of water or an unpleasant sound.
' 'The Lord bless her and keep her,' ' Lewis Merrill said. That was when I looked at Owen. His eyes were shut, his lips were moving; he appeared to be growling, but it was the best he could do at humming-it was 'Crown Him with Many Crowns' that I heard; it was not my imagination. But Owen held his hands over his ears, too. Then I saw Simon raise his hands; Noah's hands were already in place-and my Uncle Alfred and my Aunt Martha:
they held their ears, too. Even Lydia held her ears in her hands. My grandmother glowered, but she would not raise her hands; she made herself listen, although I could tell it was painful for her to hear it-and that was when / heard it: the children on the high-school athletic fields. They were playing baseball. There were the usual shouts, the occasional arguments, the voices coming all at once; and then the quiet, or almost quiet, was punctuated-as baseball games always are--by the crack of the bat. There it went, a pretty solid-sounding hit, and I watched even the rocklike face of Mr. Meany wince, his fingers close on Owen's shoulders. And Mr. Merrill, stuttering worse than usual, said, ' 'The Lord make his face to shine upon her and be gracious unto her, the Lord lift up his countenance upon her and give her peace. Amen.' '
He immediately bent down and took some loose dirt in his hand; he was the first to cast earth upon my mother's coffin, where I knew she wore a black dress-the one she'd copied from the red dress, which she'd hated. The white copy, Dan had said, did not look so good on her; I guessed that her death had ill-affected her tan. I'd already been told that the swelling at her temple, and the surrounding discoloration, had made an open coffin inadvisable-not that we Wheelwrights were much for open coffins, under any circumstances; Yankees believe in closed doors. One by one, the mourners threw dirt on the coffin; then it was awkward to return their hands to their ears-although Hester did, before she thought better of it. The heel of her dirty hand put a smudge on her ear and on the side of her face. Owen would not throw a handful of dirt; I also saw that he would not take his hands from his
