Farmington by Clarence Darrow — Read

Directly in the shelter of the church was the burying-ground. It had first been laid out at the corner of the road, on one side of the great building; but slowly and surely it crept around behind the sheds where the horses were hitched during the Sunday services, and then still farther on to the other side. The first part of the yard was almost filled with little mounds and leaning stones, and most of its silent tenants were forgotten by all save a few old people who lingered far beyond the natural term of life. The new yard, as we called it, was in every way more pretentious than the old; the headstones were higher, the grass was greener, the mounds were more regular, and the trees and shrubs were better kept. The bones of many of the dead aristocracy had been dug up out of the old yard by their proud relatives, and carefully laid in the new, where they might rest in the same exclusive surroundings in which they lived while still upon the earth.

As a child, these graveyards had no definite meaning to me, but I never went by them after nightfall if I could possibly go any other way, especially if I chanced to be alone. If I could not avoid going this way, I always kept well to the other side of the road, and walked or ran as fast as I could, with scarcely a glance toward the silent yard and the white stones that gleamed so grimly in the dusk. Sometimes a number of us boys would go through the yard in broad daylight, but even then we preferred almost any other spot.