’Seeding and planting time, eh?’ The stranger laughed.

‘You might say that.’

‘Don’t you dig in winter anyhow? For special funerals? Special dead?’’

’Some yards got a hose-shovel contraption. Pump hot water through the blade; shape a grave quick, like placer mining, even with the ground a ice pond. We don’t cotton to that. Use picks and shovels.’

The young man hesitated. ‘Does it bother you?’

‘You mean, I get scared ever?’

‘Well.. yes.’

The old man took out and stuffed his pipe with tobacco, tamped it with a calloused thumb, lit it, and let out a small stream of smoke.

‘No,’ he said at last.

The young man’s shoulders sank.

‘Disappointed?’ said the old man.

‘I thought maybe once.?’

‘Oh, when you’re young maybe. One time. ’

‘Then, there was a time!’ The young man shifted up a step.

The old man glanced at him sharply. ‘One time.’ He stared at the marbled hills and the dark trees. ‘My grandpa owned this yard. I was born here. A gravedigger’s son learns to ignore things.’

The old man took a number of deep puffs and said, ‘I was just eighteen, folks off on vacation, me left to tend things alone, mow the lawn, dig holes, and such. Alone, four graves to dig in October and a cold came hard off the lake, frost on the graves, tombstones like snow, ground froze solid.

‘One night I walked out. No moon. Hard grass under foot, could see my breath, hands in my pockets, walking, listening.’

The old man exhaled frail ghosts from his thin nostrils. ‘Then I heard this sound, deep under. I froze. It was a voice, screaming. Someone woke up buried, heard me walk by, cried out. I just stood. They screamed and screamed. Earth banged. On a cold night, ground’s like porcelain, rings, you see?

‘Well.’ The old man shut his eyes to remember.