Now every one seemed
eager to talk. That afternoon Fuchs told me story after story; about the
Black Tiger mine, and about violent deaths and casual buryings, and the
queer fancies of dying men. You never really knew a man, he said, until
you saw him die. Most men were game, and went without a grudge.
The postmaster, going home, stopped to say that grandfather would bring
the coroner back with him to spend the night. The officers of the
Norwegian church, he told us, had held a meeting and decided that the
Norwegian graveyard could not extend its hospitality to Mr. Shimerda.
Grandmother was indignant. "If these foreigners are so clannish, Mr.
Bushy, we'll have to have an American graveyard that will be more
liberal-minded. I'll get right after Josiah to start one in the spring. If
anything was to happen to me, I don't want the Norwegians holding
inquisitions over me to see whether I'm good enough to be laid amongst
'em."
Soon grandfather returned, bringing with him Anton Jelinek, and that
important person, the coroner. He was a mild, flurried old man, a Civil
War veteran, with one sleeve hanging empty. He seemed to find this case
very perplexing, and said if it had not been for grandfather he would have
sworn out a warrant against Krajiek. "The way he acted, and the way his
axe fit the wound, was enough to convict any man."
Although it was perfectly clear that Mr.
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