That repose was not disturbed by Colonel Gideon Ward.  The Colonel had decided that affairs in his timber tracts needed his attention during that autumn.

XXV

Events do bunch themselves strangely, sometimes.

They bunched in Smyrna as follows: 

1.  The new monument arrived for Batson Reeves’s graveyard lot in which was interred the first Mrs. Reeves; monument a belated arrival.

2.  The announcement was made that Batson Reeves had at last caught a new wife in the person of Widow Delora Crymble, wedding set for Tuesday week.

3.  Dependence Crymble, deceased husband of Delora, reappeared on earth.  This latter event to be further elaborated.

Cap’n Aaron Sproul, first selectman of Smyrna, on his way from his home to the town office, found several men leaning on the graveyard fence, gazing over into the hallowed precincts of the dead with entire lack of that solemnity that is supposed to be attached to graveyards.  It was on the morning following the last stroke of work on the Reeves monument.

The Reeves monument, a wholly unique affair, consisted of a life-sized granite figure of Mr. Reeves standing on a granite pedestal in the conventional attitude of a man having his photograph taken.  His head was set back stiffly, the right foot was well advanced, and he held a round-topped hat in the hook of his elbow.

On the pedestal was carved: 

    ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF
    LOANTHA REEVES,
    WIFE OF BATSON REEVES, ACCORDING TO HER
    LAST REQUEST.

It may be said in passing that Mrs. Reeves, having entertained a very exalted opinion of Mr. Reeves during life, left a portion of her own estate in the hands of trustees in order that this sentinel figure should stand guard above her in the sunshine and the rain.  The idea was poetic.  But Cap’n Sproul, joining the hilarious group at the graveyard fence, noted that some gruesome village humorist had seriously interfered with the poetic idea.  Painted on a planed board set up against the monument was this: 

    I’m Watching Here Both Night and Day,
    So Number One Can’t Get Away.

“That’s kind o’ pat, Cap’n, considerin’ he’s goin’ to get married to Number Two next week,” suggested one of the loungers.

Cap’n Sproul scowled into the grin that the other turned on him.

“I ain’t got any regard for a human dogfish like Bat Reeves,” he grunted, his heart full of righteous bitterness against a proclaimed enemy, “but as first selectman of this town I don’t stand for makin’ a comic joke-book out of this cemetery.”  He climbed over the fence, secured the offending board and split it across his broad toe.  Then with the pieces under his arm he trudged on toward the town office, having it in his mind to use the board for kindling in the barrel stove.

One strip he whittled savagely into shavings and the other he broke into fagots, and when the fire was snapping merrily in the rusty stove he resumed a labor upon which he had been intent for several days.  Predecessors in office had called it “writing the town report.”  Cap’n Sproul called it “loggin’ the year’s run.”