As I approached the scene of my former life, I met many people. I had struck a realm of spirits who at first perplexed me. They did not look happy, and seemed possessed by great unrest. I observed that, though they fluttered and moved impatiently, none rose far above the surface of the earth. Most of them were employed in one way or another upon it. Some bought and sold; some eat and drank; others occupied themselves in coarse pleasures, from which one could but turn away the eyes. There were those who were busied in more refined ways:—students with eyes fastened to dusty volumes; virtuosos who hung about a picture, a statue, a tapestry, that had enslaved them; one musical creature I saw, who ought to have been of exquisite organization, judging from his hands—he played perpetually upon an instrument that he could not tune; women, I saw too, who robed and disrobed without a glint of pleasure in their faded faces.

There were ruder souls than any of these—but one sought for them in the dens of the earth; their dead hands still were red with stains of blood, and in their dead hearts reigned the remnants of hideous passions.

Of all these appearances, which I still found it natural to call phenomena as I should once have done, it will be remembered that I received the temporary and imperfect impression of a person passing swiftly through a crowd, so that I do not wish my account to be accepted for anything more trustworthy than it is.

While I was wondering greatly what it meant, some one joined and spoke to me familiarly, and, turning, I saw it to be that old neighbor, Mrs. Mersey, to whom I have alluded, who, like myself, seemed to be bent upon an errand, and to be but a visitor upon the earth. She was a most lovely spirit, as she had always been, and I grasped her hand cordially while we swept on rapidly together to our journey’s end.

“Do tell me,” I whispered, as soon as I could draw her near enough, “who all these people are, and what it means. I fear to guess. And yet indeed they seem like the dead who cannot get away.”

“Alas,” she sighed, “you have said it. They loved nothing, they lived for nothing, they believed in nothing, they cultivated themselves for nothing but the earth. They simply lack the spiritual momentum to get away from it. It is as much the working of a natural law as the progress of a fever. Many of my duties have been among such as these. I know them well. They need time and tact in treatment, and oh, the greatest patience! At first it discouraged me, but I am learning the enthusiasm of my work.”

“These, then,” I said, “were those I saw in that first hour, when my father led me out of the house, and through the street. I saw you among them, Mrs. Mersey, but I knew even then that you were not of them. But surely they do not stay forever prisoners of the earth? Surely such a blot on the face of spiritual life cannot but fade away? I am a new-comer. I am still quite ignorant, you see. But I do not understand, any more than I did before, how that could be.”

“They have their choice,” she answered vaguely. But when I saw the high solemnity of her aspect, I feared to press my questions. I could not, however, or I did not forbear saying:—

“At least you must have already persuaded many to sever themselves from such a condition as this?”

“Already some, I hope,” she replied evasively, as she moved away. She always had remarkably fine manners, of which death had by no means deprived her. I admired her graciousness and dignity as she passed from my side to that of one we met, who, in a dejected voice, called her by her name, and intimated that he wished to speak with her. He was a pale and restless youth, and I thought, but was not sure, for we separated so quickly, that it was the little fellow I spoke of, Bobby Bend. I looked back, after I had advanced some distance on my way, and saw the two together, conversing earnestly. While I was still watching them, it seemed to me, though I cannot be positive upon this point, that they had changed their course, and were quietly ascending, she leading, he following, above the dismal sphere in which she found the lad, and that his heavy, awkward, downward motions became freer, struggling upward, as I gazed.

I had now come to the location of my old home, and, as I passed through the familiar village streets, I saw that night was coming on. I met many whom I knew, both of those called dead and living. The former recognized me, but the latter saw me not. No one detained me, however, for I felt in haste which I could not conceal.

With high-beating heart, I approached the dear old house. No one was astir. As I turned the handle of the door, a soft, sickening touch crawled around my wrist; recoiling, I found that I was entwisted in a piece of crape that the wind had blown against me.

I went in softly; but I might have spared myself the pains. No one heard me, though the heavy door creaked, I thought, as emphatically as it always had—loudest when we were out latest, and longest when we shut it quickest. I went into the parlor and stood, for a moment, uncertain what to do.

Alice was there, and my married sister Jane, with her husband and little boy. They sat about the fire, conversing sadly. Alice’s pretty eyes were disfigured with crying. They spoke constantly of me. Alice was relating to Jane and her family the particulars of my illness. I was touched to hear her call me “patient and sweet;”—none the less because she had often told me I was the most impatient member of the family.

No one had observed my entrance. Of course I was prepared for this, but I cannot tell why I should have felt it, as I certainly did. A low bamboo chair, cushioned with green crÉtonne, stood by the table. I had a fancy for this chair, and, pleased that they had left it unoccupied, advanced and took it, in the old way. It was with something almost like a shock, that I found myself unnoticed in the very centre of their group.

While I sat there, Jane moved to fix the fire, and, in returning, made as if she would take the bamboo chair.

“Oh, don’t!” said Alice, sobbing freshly. Jane’s own tears sprang, and she turned away.

“It seems to me,” said my brother-in-law, looking about with the patient grimace of a business man compelled to waste time at a funeral, “that there has a cold draught come into this room from somewhere. Nobody has left the front door open, I hope? I’ll go and see.”

He went, glad of the excuse to stir about, poor fellow, and I presume he took a comfortable smoke outside.

The little boy started after his father, but was bidden back, and crawled up into the chair where I was sitting. I took the child upon my lap, and let him stay. No one removed him, he grew so quiet, and he was soon asleep in my arm. This pleased me; but I could not be contented long, so I kissed the boy and put him down. He cried bitterly, and ran to his mother for comfort.

While they were occupied with him, I stole away. I thought I knew where Mother would be, and was ashamed of myself at the reluctance I certainly had to enter my own room, under these exciting circumstances.

Conquering this timidity, as unwomanly and unworthy, I went up and opened the familiar door. I had begun to learn that neither sound nor sight followed my motions now, so that I was not surprised at attracting no attention from the lonely occupant of the room. I closed the door—from long habit I still made an effort to turn the latch softly—and resolutely examined what I saw.

My mother was there, as I had expected. The room was cold—there was no fire,—and she had on her heavy blanket shawl. The gas was lighted, and one of my red candles, but both burned dimly. The poor woman’s magenta geranium had frozen. My mother sat in the red easy-chair, which, being a huge, old-fashioned thing, surrounded and shielded her from the draught. My clothes, and medicines, and all the little signs of sickness had been removed. The room was swept, and orderly. Above the bed, the pictures and the carved cross looked down.

Below them, calm as sleep, and cold as frost, and terrible as silence, lay that which had been I.

She did not shrink. She was sitting close beside it. She gazed at it with the tenderness which death itself could not affright. Mother was not crying. She did not look as if she had shed tears for a long time. But her wanness and the drawn lines about her mouth were hard to see. Her aged hands trembled as she cut the locks of hair from the neck of the dead. She was growing to be an old woman. And I—her first-born—I had been her staff of life, and on me she had thought to lean in her widowed age. She seemed to me to have grown feeble fast in the time since I had left her.

All my soul rushed to my lips, and I cried out—it seemed that either the dead or the living must hear that cry—

“Mother! Oh, my dear mother!”

But deaf as life, she sat before me. She had just cut off the lock of hair she wanted; as I spoke, the curling ends of it twined around her fingers; I tried to snatch it away, thinking thus to arrest her attention.

The lock of hair trembled, turned, and clung the closer to the living hand. She pressed it to her lips with the passion of desolation.

“But, Mother,” I cried once more, “I am here.” I flung my arms about her and kissed her again and again. I called and entreated her by every dear name that household love had taught us. I besought her to turn, to see, to hear, to believe, to be comforted. I told her how blest was I, how bountiful was death.

“I am alive,” I said. “I am alive! I see you, I touch you, hear you, love you, hold you!” I tried argument and severity; I tried tenderness and ridicule.

She turned at this: it seemed to me that she regarded me. She stretched her arms out; her aged hands groped to and fro as if she felt for something and found it not; she shook her head, her dim eyes gazed blankly into mine. She sighed patiently, and rose as if to leave the room, but hesitated,—covered the face of the dead body—caressed it once or twice as if it had been a living infant—and then, taking up her Bible, which had been upon the chair beside her, dropped upon her knees, and holding the book against her sunken cheek, abandoned herself to silent prayer.

This was more than I could bear just then, and, thinking to collect myself by a few moments’ solitude, I left her. But as I stood in the dark hall, uncertain and unquiet, I noticed a long, narrow line of light at my feet, and, following it confusedly, found that it came from the crack in the closed, but unlatched door of another well-remembered room. I pushed the door open hurriedly and closed it behind me.

My brother sat in this room alone. His fire was blazing cheerfully and, flashing, revealed the deer’s-head from the Adirondacks, the stuffed rose-curlew from Florida, the gull’s wing from Cape Ann, the gun and rifle and bamboo fish-pole, the class photographs over the mantel, the feminine features on porcelain in velvet frames, all the little trappings with which I was familiar. Tom had been trying to study, but his Homer lay pushed away, with crumpled leaves, upon the table. Buried in his lexicon—one strong elbow intervening—down, like a hero thrown, the boy’s face had gone.

“Tom,” I said quietly—I always spoke quietly to Tom, who had a constitutional fear of what he called “emotions”—“Tom, you’d better be studying your Greek. I’d much rather see you. Come, I’ll help you.”

He did not move, poor fellow, and as I came nearer, I saw, to my heart-break, that our Tom was crying. Sobs shook his huge frame, and down between the iron fingers, toughened by base-ball matches, tears had streamed upon the pages of the Odyssey.

“Tom, Tom, old fellow, don’t!” I cried, and, hungry as love, I took the boy. I got upon the arm of the smoking chair, as I used to, and so had my hands about his neck, and my cheek upon his curly hair, and would have soothed him. Indeed, he did grow calm, and calmer, as if he yielded to my touch; and presently he lifted his wet face, and looked about the room, half ashamed, half defiant, as if to ask who saw that.

“Come, Tom,” I tried again. “It really isn’t so bad as you think. And there is Mother catching cold in that room. Go and get her away from the body. It is no place for her. She’ll get sick. Nobody can manage her as well as you.”

As if he heard me, he arose. As if he knew me, he looked for the flashing of an instant into my eyes.

“I don’t see how a girl of her sense can be dead,” said the boy aloud. He stretched his arms once above his head, and out into the bright, empty room, and I heard him groan in a way that wrung my heart. I went impulsively to him, and as his arms closed, they closed about me strongly. He stood for a moment quite still. I could feel the nervous strain subsiding all over his big soul and body.

“Hush,” I whispered. “I’m no more dead than you are.”

If he heard, what he felt, God knows. I speak of a mystery. No optical illusion, no tactual hallucination could hold the boy who took all the medals at the gymnasium. The hearty, healthy fellow could receive no abnormal sign from the love and longing of the dead. Only spirit unto spirit could attempt that strange out-reaching. Spirit unto spirit, was it done? Still, I relate a mystery, and what shall I say? His professor in the class-room of metaphysics would teach him next week that grief owns the law of the rhythm of motion; and that at the oscillation of the pendulum the excitement of anguish shall subside into apathy which mourners alike treat as a disloyalty to the dead, and court as a nervous relief to the living.

Be this as it may, the boy grew suddenly calm, and even cheerful, and followed me at once. I led him directly to his mother, and left them for a time alone together.

After this my own calm, because my own confidence, increased. My dreary sense of helplessness before the suffering of those I loved, gave place to the consciousness of power to reach them. I detected this power in myself in an undeveloped form, and realized that it might require exercise and culture, like all other powers, if I would make valuable use of it. I could already regard the cultivation of the faculty which would enable love to defy death, and spirit to conquer matter, as likely to be one of the occupations of a full life.

I went out into the fresh air for a time to think these thoughts through by myself, undisturbed by the sight of grief that I could not remove; and strolled up and down the village streets in the frosty night.

When I returned to the house they had all separated for the night, sadly seeking sleep in view of the events of the morrow, when, as I had already inferred, the funeral would take place.

I spent the night among them, chiefly with my mother and Tom, passing unnoticed from room to room, and comforting them in such ways as I found possible. The boy had locked his door, but after a few trials I found myself able to pass the medium of this resisting matter, and to enter and depart according to my will. Tom finished his lesson in the Odyssey, and I sat by and helped him when I could. This I found possible in simple ways, which I may explain farther at another time. We had often studied together, and his mind the more readily, therefore, responded to the influence of my own. He was soon well asleep, and I was free to give all my attention to my poor mother. Of those long and solemn hours, what shall I say? I thought she would never, never rest. I held her in these arms the live-long night. With these hands I caressed and calmed her. With these lips I kissed her. With this breath I warmed her cold brow and fingers. With all my soul and body I willed that I would comfort her, and I believe, thank God, I did. At dawn she slept peacefully; she slept late, and rose refreshed. I remained closely by her throughout the day.

They did their best, let me say, to provide me with a Christian funeral, partly in accordance with some wishes I had expressed in writing, partly from the impulse of their own good sense. Not a curtain was drawn to darken the house of death. The blessed winter sunshine flowed in like the current of a broad stream, through low, wide windows. No ghastly “funeral flowers” filled the room; there was only a cluster of red pinks upon the coffin, and the air was sweet but not heavy with the carnation perfume that they knew I loved. My dead body and face they had covered with a deep red pall, just shaded off the black, as dark as darkness could be, and yet be redness. Not a bell was tolled. Not a tear—at least, I mean, by those nearest me—not a tear was shed. As the body was carried from the house, the voices of unseen singers lifted the German funeral chant:—

At the grave they sang:—

since my mother had asked for one of the old hymns; and besides the usual Scriptural Burial Service, a friend, who was dear to me, read Mrs. Browning’s “Sleep.”

It was all as I would have had it, and I looked on peacefully. If I could have spoken I would have said: “You have buried me cheerfully, as Christians ought, as a Christian ought to be.”

I was greatly touched, I must admit, at the grief of some of the poor, plain people who followed my body on its final journey to the village church-yard. The woman who sent the magenta geranium refused to be comforted, and there were one or two young girls whom I had been so fortunate as to assist in difficulties, who, I think, did truly mourn. Some of my boys from the Grand Army were there, too,—some, I mean, whom it had been my privilege to care for in the hospitals in the old war days. They came in uniform, and held their caps before their eyes. It did please me to see them there.

When the brief service at the grave was over, I would have gone home with my mother, feeling that she needed me more than ever; but as I turned to do so, I was approached by a spirit whose presence I had not observed. It proved to be my father. He detained me, explaining that I should remain where I was, feeling no fear, but making no protest, till the Will governing my next movement might be made known to me. So I bade my mother good-by, and Tom, as well as I could in the surprise and confusion, and watched them all as they went away. She, as she walked, seemed to those about her to be leaning only upon her son. But I beheld my father tenderly hastening close beside her, while he supported her with the arm which had never failed her yet, in all their loving lives. Therefore I could let her go, without distress.

The funeral procession departed slowly; the grave was filled; one of the mill-girls came back and threw in some arbor vitÆ and a flower or two,—the sexton hurried her, and both went away. It grew dusk, dark. I and my body were left alone together.

Of that solemn watch, it is not for me to chatter to any other soul. Memories overswept me, which only we two could share. Hopes possessed me which it were not possible to explain to another organization. Regret, resolve, awe, and joy, every high human emotion excepting fear, battled about us. While I knelt there in the windless night, I heard chanting from a long distance, but yet distinct to the dead, that is to the living ear. As I listened, the sound deepened, approaching, and a group of singing spirits swept by in the starlit air, poised like birds, or thoughts, above me:

“It is sown a natural—it is raised a spiritual body.”

“Death! where is thy sting?—Grave!—thy victory?”

“Believing in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

I tried my voice, and joined, for I could no longer help it, in the thrilling chorus. It was the first time since I died, that I had felt myself invited or inclined to share the occupations of others, in the life I had entered. Kneeling there, in the happy night, by my own grave, I lifted all my soul and sense into the immortal words, now for the first time comprehensible to me:

“I believe, I believe in the resurrection of the dead.”

It was not long thereafter that I received the summons to return. I should have been glad to go home once more, but was able to check my own preference without wilful protest, or an aching heart. The conviction that all was well with my darlings and myself, for life and for death, had now become an intense yet simple thing, like consciousness itself.

I went as, and where I was bidden, joyfully.