A Child's First Impressions of Death
By William H. Beard. Harper's Magazine | September 6, 2004. http://www.harpers.org/AChildsFirstImpressionsOfDeath.html (Lessons learned from the deaths of poor Frank and little Mary, who had the canker-rash. Originally from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 64, iss. 384, pp. 822-824, May 1882. Sources) (William H. Beard (1824-1900) was known for his lithographic renderings of dancing bears.) The conception of its own mortality does not naturally occur to the child. Life is the recognized fact, and my confidence of exemption from the common and inevitable fate of all mankind was early shaken by the death of two playmates. One morning in June our old teacher's little flock were all present in the brick school-house at the end of the village, except one boy. The teacher, upon opening the school, said, solemnly, that little Frank had the canker-rash,[1] and explaining to us the dangerous nature of the malady, admonished us to keep away from the neighborhood of his residence. His words seemed to make no impression, save perhaps a vague feeling of envy of Frank, who was free from confinement in school. But day by day the teacher each morning reported poor Frank as worse, and still worse, until one morning he told us, with tremulous voice, that he was dead. Early in the morning, he said, while we were all sleeping comfortably in our beds, God had taken him away forever. Our slow sympathies were finally aroused, and we looked and felt as sad as we could. Some of the girls cried, and looked reproachfully at those who did not, and seemed quite to plume themselves upon their moral superiority. Still, we scarcely understood that our mate was gone forever, never to come among us again, that he was dead, or rather what death meant, and in a little time poor Frank seenied forgotten by his schoolmates, even by the girls who cried. School was dismissed the afternoon of the funeral, that the children might attend, and I saw the pale face of my schoolmate in his coffin, but do not remember that I experienced any alarm, or that it made any weighty impression upon my mind. As Frank lived in a distant part of the village, and we seldom met except at school, I was probably not intimate enough with him to feel his death as I did that of another companion when, later in the season, the same dread disease attacked a bright little girl just across the street from my own home, with whom I and the other children played habitually when out of school. My fears, which had perhaps been somewhat disturbed by the death of Frank, were now thoroughly awakened.The dread that came over me was very great, and when, in three days, from life and perfect health, little Mary died, I was terrified. On the day of the funeral I watched the preparations with painful interest. I saw the cabinet-maker (there was no other undertaker) bring the plain deal coffin, and two men whom I did not know brought the old bier, gray with long exposure to the weather, and placed it on the grass in the front yard. There were, I noted, two slats of new board nailed across the top, which I knew were to accommodate the little coffin, and wondered if the carpenter had first measured to make sure. The two men lingered a moment to speak together, and one raised his foot and placed it upon the bier, while he leaned his elbow upon his knee for greater ease, which I thought sacrilege, such a sanctity pervaded every thing that pertained to death. Soon a few early comers gathered about the gate, and I crossed the road to listen to their remarks, made in an under-tone. They spoke of the prevalence of the terrible disease, and its unusual fatality that season, compared the respective powers of the two leading physicians to cope with it, and enumerated the victims already fallen. Then they discussed the character of the dead child, spoke warmly of her intelligence and virtues, and kindly of her faults, charitably attributing them to the unguided, unrestrained life she had led until she had come to this recent home. A decent solemnity prevailed at the funeral, and I saw that some of the older members of the family, with other sympathetic females, shed tears, and I wondered why, knowing that Mary was no kin of theirs. But there were no real mourners, so to speak, for poor Mary was a sort of waif in the quiet community, who had been taken by our neighbor, perhaps in charity, from a family of children a mile or so outside the village, whose parents had both died, and left these little ones with no near relatives to care for them. Her position, I presume, was somewhat that of a servant in the family, though in that primitive country and those early days such distinctions were very slight. At all events, whatever may have been the child's position in the family she lived with, she was one, and a prominent one, of a group of children of that particular neighborhood who were much together, played, quarrelled, and made up, as children do, and by her death the conviction was forced upon my young mind that I too was mortal, and in my ignorance I made myself miserable with apprehension. I shrank from looking at my playmate in her coffin, yet was impelled by an infatuation I could not withstand; and when I looked down upon that little lifeless figure, so white and motionless, I understood the change, and saw and felt how great it was. Poor little Mary was very plain, and was in life painfully conscious of it. Though she could resent vigorously any allusion to it by her mates, she would shrink away timidly when she discovered that she was the object of especial observation on the part of her seniors. In death how changed! There was no shrinking now from the gaze of any. How unbecoming that pallor was, making the brown freckles more conspicuous by contrast, as also the red hair, about which she was so sensitive in life, and which was now combed back from the narrow forehead! Her thin hands were stiffly folded across the little breast. As I noted each minute circumstance and detail with dreadful exactness that impressed them upon my memory, I felt that it was unfair and cruel to expose her thus to the gaze of the curious, and from my very heart I pitied her, and felt a sense of guilt and entire blame that I had ever quarrelled or been angry with her. In the excess of my fears, my tumultuous feelings carried me without ceremony back to my home?not into the house, however, but to the garden, where I always retired when laden with sorrows and perplexities too great for the confinement of our cottage walls. There, entirely screened from view by a patch of early corn, I sat upon a potato hill, and told my troubles and anxieties to Fido, my dog. Fido sympathized with all my moods, rejoiced when I was happy, was miserable when I was sad, gave unhesitating assent to all I asserted, and never entertained a doubt of the correctness of my opinions. Could child or man ask more perfect friendship? And so I sat, mused, cried, and divided my troubles with my trusty friend, and made him as wretched as I, while he replied to my remarks, in his dog way, by various well-understood signs, sniffed, licked his jaws, and trod nervously with his white fore-feet, and so expressed his sympathy with my every thought and feeling. I told him how easy it would be for me to get the canker-rash, and die, as poor little Mary had; and what would become of him? Then I thought Fido might die of some disease peculiar to his kind?dogs did not live always?and put my arm around his neck, and cried bitterly, and Fido licked my face in sympathy. In my selfish misery, my fears did not go out beyond the patch of corn. I only thought of myself and dog; I had no apprehension for the other children. I suppose the confidence I had hitherto felt in my exemption from death was transferred to them, if, indeed, I thought of them at all. There had been some hills opened for early potatoes, and many, too small for use, lay scattered about upon the loose earth. The thought struck me, what if little children prematurely torn from life, should also be discarded as useless, and then fell to crying again, and Fido licked away my tears. At length I grew weary of this alternate weeping and brooding, and Fido's too ready assent, and went into the house to find my mother, who had returned from the funeral, and told her all my woes. She said little Mary had been very headstrong, and would not keep within-doors when first taken ill, nor take the medicine the doctor left for her, and told me, if I did not want to be sick, to be obedient to the doctor's directions, as well as to her own commands, which I so gladly promised to do. When I told her of the metaphor of the small potatoes, a faint smile played about her features for a moment; then she asked me if I did not remember what the Saviour had said of little children, and of His love for them. I was greatly comforted; and Fido, who sat by with anxious, inquiring look, seeing my brightened expression, capered about for joy. My childish fears were quieted, to be sure, but I never regained my former confidence. That early impression of mortality, deepened by later experiences, has never quite left my mind, but comes unbidden at all seasons to claim a moment's attention, in the hours of relaxation and pleasure as well as of care and sorrow. In the busy day and in the silence of the night it is to me as the human skull to the pious recluse, a constant reminder of life's uncertainty, and mingles with every thought and feeling. "In the midst of laughter we are sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness." -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
