today in class
i was reading a short story
for American Lit.
The Sculptor's Funeral
by Willa Cather.
it's about a man who has died
and his last wish was to be brought
back to his cruel hometown
to be buried.
"It's not a pleasant place to be lying while the world is moving and doing and bettering," he had said with a feeble smile, "but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the place we came from, in the end. The townspeople will come in for a look at me; and after they have had their say, I shan't have much to fear from the judgement of God!"
a man that worked under him,
Steavens,
brought him home in a casket.
everybody had something
bad to say about him.
Laird,
a corrupt lawyer in the town,
had enough of it.
he yelled at the townspeople
and outed all of those who had
asked him to bend the law.
he made them realize that
they had done more wrong than
the man who was now dead.
"Well, I came back here and became the ****** shyster you wanted me to be. You pretend to have some sort of respect for me; and yet you'll stand up and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, whose soul you couldn't ***** and whose hands you couldn't tie."
"Harvey Merrick wouldn't have given one sunset over your marshes for all you've got to put together, and you know it..."
this story makes me
want to believe that,
if i'm ever lying in a casket,
someone will stand up for me
and try to clear my name.
even in small, ****** towns,
like the one i live in,
maybe there's at least
one person
with a kind heart.