Like all public projects, there was a good deal of wrangling over the changed location. The whole town, Small’s father and his family included, went out to inspect the New Cemetery. One person thought this, and one that, about it. It was so different from the old cozy, near-in cemetery that was so easy of access. However, we supposed we had to grow, and cemeteries could not go on expanding in the middle of cities. We might as well swallow Ross Bay as a burying ground and stop fussing. 

But how different they were! The hard cold gravestones of the old plan were gentled by the vines and brambles that tied them together in a friendly fashion. The tall trees around the border, that had leaves with silvery white backs, dappled by the overgrown greenery of the graves with shadow.

At first the old-timers cried out at carrying their dead to the bare new lonesome place. The graves looked so sparse and desolate with the great empty spaces between. No hugging brambles, no twining honeysuckle, everything bleak and raw, new and rough, nothing to tie the grave to gave chummily. The dry grass parched quickly under the glaring sun, perpetual wind off the sea rattled and creaked among it up on the ridge.

To be eligible to lie in the Old Cemetery, you only had to be dead, there was no sorting of race and creed. In the new, it was different. The High and Low Church did not mix, nor could the Roman Catholics, Jews, Presbyterians and Atheists lie beside each other,; they had different part assigned to them. 

In 1886, Small’s mother died. It was the first time that a death in the house had been experienced by the younger members of the family. Stillness fall on their home, their garden, on the whole world it seemed. In the house, the hush centred in the drawing room where Small’s mother lay in her coffin., at peace after her long, long suffering. Serenely indifferent to the hurt that was all about her. She who had been so sumpathetic to the smallest suffering of any of her family. 

Father sat in the old “praying chair” in the sitting room all day, not only for family worship. He was broken, silent, not even ashamed of the tears that would run down, hurrying to hide in his beard. His eyes stared but they looked at nothing. 

Upstairs the family and some neighbours who had come to help were sewing black.  On the bed lay a huge role of silk crepe. It had cost of lot of money, that crepe, but there were five women to be clothed in mourning, besides that armlets on Fathers and Dick’s coats and on all our overcoats. We wanted to show Mother every atom of respect we could, and in 1996 that was one of the ways to do it. 

Small was not much help in the sewing room upstairs. For the moment, the nearly blind old lady who insisted on coming to trim our hats was supplied with a pincushion full of threaded needles, and all the basting threads were puled out of the sewing till more were put in. Small was appointed “Odd Jobs” one of which is to look in on Father often and see that he wanted nothing. Small was afraid to speak. She just passed through the room, in at one door, out at the other. 

He called, “Small!”

“Yes, Father.”

“Tell your sisters I wish to speak to them, Small. 

“Very well, Father.” They circled around his chair.

“I have called you,” Small’s father said, “to discuss with you the choosing of the family burial plot. It is a question that concerns us all. We shall all lied there eventually, myself beside your mother before long. ‘Three score and ten’, that is God’s allotted age for Man.”

Father always maintained that statement, and kept up to time two years later. Small held that Father would have thought it equivalent of given God “back-chat” not to have died at the age of three-score and ten years. 

It was the first time that Father had allowed his children to have a voice in family affairs. Bigger and Middle’s minds had not been considered adult enough; as for Small, she was not sure now whether she was to have  voice or not.

Her father looked at his two eldest daughters who shook their heads then looked at Bigger and Middle.

Bigger said, “You choose, Father,” And Middle said nothing. 

Small stepped a little closer to the praying chair hoping to remind her Father she was there. He was reminded of Small. 

“And you?” he said, sensing her eagerness.

“I choose the spot the first time we went to see the New Cemetery, Father.”

“That was strange. Why?”

“I just liked it, not much, but better than the rest.”

“Why did you like it?”

“It seemed to me the only comfortable spot in all the cold bleakness. It has two willow trees growing on it, the only trees in the whole New Cemetery. It lies in a little hollow right in the centre of Ross Bay’s curve. The sea gulls swoop in from one end of Ross Bay, circle the two willows and circle out again, carrying their cries out to sea.”

Father frowned. “I do not like that low-laying dip, Small. It is dame, unhealthy.”

The Elder said, “Trees on graves are not good.” 

“Why?”

“Their roots creep about and pierce into the seams of coffins. It is a horrible idea.”

“I think it would be splendid to be useful to the earth after you were no more use to yourself, splendid to feed a tree!” said Small. 

The Elder was all ready with a tongue click of disgust when Father closed the conversation by saying, “Here is the undertaker. Get your hats on.” He nodded to Small. “You are to come as well as your oldest sister.” Small felt important, almost grown up. 

The Elder’s face was unpleasant when she saw the scrawny, hungry-looking little willows. Father frowned at the comparative nearness of the willow to the bank. He said, “They’ve talked long about that retaining wall, dear knows when they will build it. Meantime, time tide breakers are dashing against the bank. That’s bad.”

The undertaker came from the cemetery lodge. He had a plan of the cemetery plots in his hands. “This way, sir. The better class plots are up on the ridge.”

Father did not care a bit about the style but he wanted the best there for Mother. High, dry, healthy. He bought the ridge. He leant a little heavily on Small’s shoulder as he climbed the slight incline as though he felt the weight of his three score years and ten. He saw Small turn for a last look at the two willow trees, after his decision was made. “Small, you got your love of trees from me.” He smiled down at the little girl, feeling her disappointment. 

Someone else bought the plot with the willows. The willows thrived and grew sturdy and beautiful. Small always felt a little cheated when from the ridge she looked into the hollow and saw the willows. 

Up on the ridge the wind always blew and the sun always scorched and brittled the grass between the graves. A streetcar rattled every twenty minutes. The sea gulls never troubled to come that far inland to cry for the dead., nor were they any drooping willow boughs to sweep across the graves. Small used to wonder if the dead felt any healthier up there than down in the hollow.

A marvellous three-story cake had come from town. It had a pair of clasped hands on top made of hard stuff (it wasn’t even sweet to taste–Small tried) and a pair of tiny doves floating on squiggly springs made of sugar on top of the hands. This marvellous affair sat on the centre of the dining room table., which was pulled out to the extent of all its leaves and then some, so tht their was only just room to squeeze behind the end chairs. 

The wedding was to take place on the first of June. The day was fine. In the morning, Tallie the bride did something none of us would have ever dared to do before: went to the not-quite-ripe cherry trees without permission from the head of the family, gathered a handful of cherries and at them. 

When we asked how dare Tallie dared help herself before the tree was pronounced ripe, Big Sister said, “Tallie will not have to obey Father and Mother any more now. She is going to be marred and she will have to obey her husband.” She was going with this husband to live in a home of her own. It as all very extraordinary, particularly about the cherries; Father’s command had always been so strict about that. 

However, the bustle and excitement were very pleasant. We had the loveliest new white drresses to bridesmaid in, new sashes, hair ribbons, white shoes, gloves and stockings. 

The strange parson came at eight o’clock  and all the guests, Mother looked lovely; I don’t know that she had what people call beauty. She was small, dark-haired and gentle. I know now she was full of the beauty of kindness and motherliness. Father looked wretched. He did not like giving up any of his daughters.; besides he hated the dining room furniture. 

The chairs and sofa were beautiful shapes; they were mahogany  an upholstered in horsehair. But they had an unhappy arrangement of castors, and if you did not sit just the way they thought you ought, they tipped you to the floor. Father suffered two or three tips; and he could not bear to look foolish, so he took a dining room cane-seat chair into the drawing room with him for the wedding. He never moved more than 4 inches away from it, for fear someone else would prefer it to horsehair, too, and he would have to stand or be tipped. 

We youngsters were dressed early and then al the grownups with up to dress the bride. We were told to take the greatest care to keep clear, and we sat in a row in the decorated drawing room admiring everything. 

Suddenly Small remembered the ducks were not shut up for the night. Like a whirl she was off, tearing through the yard. By the ditch in the corner was a plank. It was slippery, and down she went in the mud. The side of the overskirt of the new dress was looped up with ribbon and a bunch of pink roses and white ribbon. Now it as a sight!

Small let out a hail. “Oh the wedding can’t be now, the wedding can’t be! They’ll all be so made with me because the wedding can’t be. What shall I do? What shall I do? I’ve broken the wedding!”

“What is the uproar, Small?” Bigger crossed the yard and looked. “Oh you dirty child! The wedding will go on alright, don’t alarm yourself. Only you won’t be there, though, and I doubt you will get any wedding cake…and afterward either. You’ll be in bed for the wedding.”

Small stopped bellowing. “She can’t be married without bridesmaids, can she?” Small asked in a scared whispter. 

“There’s Middle and me.”

‘Doesn’t there have to be three? Oh I wanted so much to see how it was done.”

“Well, I guess all the wedding you will see or hear is the clatter of the supper dishes  from yur bed. Now I am going to go in and tell Mother about you.”

Small picked herself up and followed.  At the kitchen door they met the Bishop’s wife. 

“Poor lamb, poor lamb!”

She kissed Small’s tear-soaked cheek between her hands. Usually Small resented those little “hundreds and thousand” kisses that Mrs. Cridge scattered all over her face as sun scatters freckles, but tonight, she found them infinitely comforting. The bishops’ wife took her to the kitchen sink. She sent Bigger for half a dozen clean towels. She soaped and and ironed an scrubbed. There was more ribbon upstairs an rosebuds in the garden.

Middle said, “Keep the hurt side close to me,” and held Small’s hand tight. 

They were bring the bride downstairs now, the lovely bride! Small was quite forgotten and the wedding proceeded.

Father told us that God had appointed man three score and ten to live on this earth, and he himself died punctually at seventy. I think he would have considered it like given God backchat to over overstepped his time limit. Mother predeceased Father by two years. He did his best to keep her longer, but she died at the age of fifty. Twenty years was between their ages at his death. Father was eighteen years older than Mother to start with, so that within two years our house was left without a head. 

The “Elder,” my oldest sister, immediately stepped into Father’s shoes. Father had been forced to be tender with his feet because of his gout The Elder’s step was hard firm. The Elder’s rule was more acute even than Father’s. She was always at home and now there was no intervening Mother to appeal to. My sister strove with us because she loved to dominate.

Father’s fierce rule had the determination behind it of bringing his family up right. Occasionally I had seem him with a slight scowl overlook some small naughtiness as when Dick rushed to the dinner table almost late and hurried his hands under the cloth.

“Did you  wash your hand before coming to the table?”

“Yes, Father.”
Now, we could see, and so could Father, that the palms only had come in contact with soap. The backs were very grubby. Had that been the Elder, Dick would have been due a touch of riding whip around his black-stockinged legs. Father went on early, ignoring the almost-lied. 

Dick’s and my black stockings were well acquainted with that riding whip. Bigger and Middle never got it. It would have been no fun whipping Bigger. She would have taken it as “chastening from the Lord” and the Elder would not like the Lord to take credit for her chastisements. Middle’s path was the way of least resistance. She went her own way and pretended she was going to Elder’s. So Dick and I took the family whacking till Dick was sent to Ridley College in the East. 

I never eldered Dick in spite of my four year’s seniority. He was a delicate little fellow. He contracted TB in the East and was advised to go down south. He went to Santa Barbara and died their some years later.; then I was the youngest in the family without argue.

The Elder work Father’s stern shoes as if she had been born in them. We were such little steps, Bigger, Middle and I. It seemed we were a bunch of contemporaries with neither head nor tail. We were middle-aged women when, in her sixty-ninth year, the Elder died. In family affairs, Bigger had always been fussy but meek; when it come to big things, she was determined. The Elder and Bigger lived together in the old home and Bigger was completely dominated by the Elder. It was amazing to see her evolve, magnify herself and take place as head of the family after the Elder’s death. 

She was good at business and pulled the place up, got after mending and back taxes the Elder had let drift. Middle and I went to her for advice in business problems. She loved being consulted and her advice was good, though we usually asked by went our own way. Bigger ruled very much as the oldest Miss Carr. Then she too died and that wretched little nigger rhyme would buzz in my head: “Ten little nigger boys…” and now we are down to two. I had never thought of a family of two having a head and a tail but apparently it does. 

We went down to the undertaking parlours to take things to Bigger. The head of the establishment was engaged. We were put into the office to wait. A falsely blond girl was at the counter violently lipsticked. A cheeky loud voiced man breezed in and lolling across the counter tickled the powder off her nose with a flower and made course jokes. A boy was mopping down the front hall singing, of all things, “Ten little nigger boys.” Beyond, we could hear the organ wheezing out a hymn, accompanied by sniffles; there was a funeral in progress. 

“Come! I can’t bear any more! We will go into the waiting room. Perhaps it will be quieter there.” I bounced off but it was worse there. The nigger boy song was at the door. The walls were hung with photos and gravestones and models of more were on the shelf. There was a block carpet with a grey border, a wicker lounge and two chairs that groaned and creaked. There was a roll-top desk and on it were files and files of funeral bills, great cruel bills extorting people for splurge funerals while wanting their dead dignified simplicity instead of show-off. 

I was all riled up and Middle was annoyed with me. She said, “You ought to calm yourself,” and showed her own superior self-control by caressing ma model tombstone on the desk.

“Don’t you bring me here to be buried!” I flared “Don’t you!”

“Don’t you take me anywhere else,” she retorted. “They go to our church and they have always buried our dead.”

“They’ve buried themselves too. These are only successors. It’s a beastly place. No quiet, no dignity.”

“Miss Carr?” The head was in the door. I don’t know how much he had heard, not do I care.”

Middle stepped forward, “I am Miss Carr.” But Middle hated making such arrangements of all sorts. She handed the parcel over to me, Suddenly it occurred to me that I did not know how to ask for my dead sister. Middle had said, “I am Miss Carr.” I jumbled a “late’ into the sentence somewhere. The man took Bigger’s dainty gown from the parcel and strained it through the fingers course as a bunch of sausages. 

“It’ll do,” he said. She ain’t fixed yet. Won’t take a jiffy. I’ll call you when she’s ready, that door.” Pointing, he was gone. He only wanted a white apron and a knife to turn him into a complete butcher.

“Ready” he shouted down the hall as if Bigger was waiting to play a game of hide and seek with us. 

“Don’t you bring me!”

Then we were in the tiny room with only Bigger’s coffin in it for furniture. Flowers were beginning to come, a soft shaded light was on her face, a face utterly serene, all the fret and worry wrinkles habitual to her life were gone. My fret and fidgets had gone too. We looked and then came quietly home.

There were letters in my cottage post box. I took them out and automatically slipped my fingers under the flaps. Middle stretched out a hand. 

“Miss Carr, I think! Remember from now, I am Miss Carr. You are Miss Emily. You can never be the oldest, the family head. You were and will be tail, always, even if I die first.