Country Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked.
    “This evening around eight o’clock; I’ll call for you,” I told her.
    “Don’t forget to bring Jack,” she said.
    That evening as we approached the gate of the old graveyard, it started to rain.
    “Maybe we should cancel the funeral,” Frances suggested.
    “No way!” I declared. “You don’t cancel funerals because of the rain.”
    “That’s because the chief mourners would object, and we don’t have that problem,” she suggested.
    “Maybe they are here in spirit,” I said, “so let’s get started. You begin reading out the directions.”
    Frances peered down at the barely legible writing.
    “I forgot my glasses,” she announced. “We’ll have to postpone it.”
    “Did you ever hear of a funeral postponed because the undertaker forgot his glasses?” I demanded.
    “This is no ordinary funeral,” she protested.
    “Give me that piece of paper,” I instructed and I tried to make out the writing.
    “My God, he is a dreadful writer,” I complained.
    “All doctors write like that,” Frances pronounced wisely; “something to do with the mystique of medicine.”
    “It says so many footsteps in from the gate,” I said, measuring it in long strides.
    “Does that mean men’s or women’s strides?” Frances asked.
    “Men’s, I presume, seeing as how he was a man,” I answered.
    “You can never presume in these cases,” Frances informed me.
    She was soon proved right because when I came to the next instruction which said turn left it meantwalking through a stone wall. Something had gone wrong somewhere.
    “Give me the instructions,” Frances demanded.
    “But I thought that you couldn’t see without your glasses,” I said.
    “Well, maybe I’m still better than you,” she told me. “So let’s go back to the gate again.”
    At this point Jack’s paper coffin was beginning to disintegrate in the rain and I was afraid that he would come out to meet us before we were quite ready for him. So back to the gate we went again and, with Frances calling out directions, I proceeded into the graveyard slowly. We had a few false stops and starts and Frances announced, “The fool that wrote this had no sense of direction.”
    Finally we arrived at the door of a big stone tomb with a rusty iron door.
    “Well, this is it. Home, sweet home,” Frances declared, but I wanted to make doubly sure.
    “Will we go back to the gate again and follow the directions so as to be quite certain?” I asked.
    “Oh, you of little faith!” Frances protested.
    We went back to the gate again and while Frances carried Jack I called out the instructions and to my surprise we arrived back at the same tomb door.
    “Now we are sure,” Frances declared handing Jack over to me.
    “He’s all yours now,” she told me.
    “Well, the first thing now is to open this door, so hold Jack a minute until I see if it’s possible,” I said,handing Jack back to her. I pulled back the rusty bolt, which moved with a squeaky protest, and the door swung back slowly. Inside it was pitch dark.
    “We should have brought a flashlamp,” I moaned.
    I peered into the tomb and discerned steps leading down just inside the door.
    “Give me Jack,” I said. Putting my foot out slowly, I proceeded cautiously down the steps. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I began to be able to see fairly clearly from the light coming in through the door. The tomb was square, damp and quite small; questionable bits and pieces littered the floor. In the corner stood a very old coffin and this I knew straight away was where Jack had been lifted from. The question now was whether I had the courage to put him back in. If I left him there on the floor, I would feel I had not quite finished the job that had been entrusted to me. Slowly I approached the coffin and put my hand out to see if the lid would lift easily. It did. I eased it up gingerly, just high enough for Jack to fit through, and then I closed my eyes so that I could not see what