editorial office of the atlantic monthly. the riverside press, cambridge, mass.
Sept 10, 1876.
Dear Clemens:
Here is a very curious story which was given my sister. She passed it over to me, and it struck me as being just in your line. See if you can’t make something of it.
Yes, we must try the Blindfold Novelettes for next year. It’ll be a great feature, I believe. Send me any modification of plot that occurs to you.
Yours ever
W. D. Howells.
[enclosure in an unidentified hand:]
An ‸A few years ago an‸ aged farmer ‸& deacon‸ died in a country town of New England & his children, who were living in Boston & were well to do, sent from the city, for the old man’s burial, a coffin with a plate of real silver on the lid. Now it happened that the venerable ‸gray-headed haired‸ Sexton of the village had never beheld anything so costly in his long years of service for the humble dead, nor could he persuade himself that a thing so costly ought to be buried in the earth & wasted.
With these thoughts in his puzzled head he cautiously approached the widow to see if it should not be taken off before the grave was filled— but was ‸The good lady‸ repulsed ‸him‸ ‸resisted his proposn ‸ with becoming indignation— Nevertheless the honest soul could not so far get over its ‸his‸ life long habit of setting great value upon solid silver in any form & so he took the thing matter into his own hands and removed the plate after the people friends & spectators who attended the funeral had left the ground. The Sexton was an honest ‸upright‸ man & had no desire to appropriate the valuable plate to his own use— But he was sorely perplexed to know what to do with it. After keeping it some days, concealed in various ways, he meantime undergoing great mental an struggle, fearing lest it should be discovered & he be accused of theft, he hit upon the plan of hiding it in the old sounding-board of which hung over the pulpit of the church, & accordingly with great difficulty succeeded in depositing the plate in this resting place. After some years it came to pass that a new church was built & the old one having been taken by the town for a school house was undergoing repairs, when the workmen one day ‸on breaking up the sounding board‸ came upon the engraved coffin plate of their former friend & deacon— Great was the surprise of course of all the town at the discovery of such a piece of witch-work until the Sexton who still plied his followed his vocation among them confessed his deed. The question arose ‸again came up‸ what disposition should be made of this singular treasure trove. Nobody knew, the widow of the deacon was already reasting beside her husband in the churchyard & had no use for it, probably having one of her own quite as good, tho’ of this we are not informed. The difficulty was solved by a grandson from the city who happened there about that time & seeing his grd’f’s coffin plate thus drifting about took it home with him, although he had but a vague idea of what disposition he could make of it. The arrival ‸in the city home‸ of such a relic, whose associations were of such questionable interest among the living, aroused an exciting discussion among the brothers & sisters of the householding The majority insisted that it should not be kept allowed to remain in the house, tho what to do with it was more than they could say— It could not be sold of course, neither could it be thrown away, that was not to be tho’t of. As a gift it had no value unless as bullion & that was not to be d to give it to a Jew or beggar was of course of out of the question— To return it to be buried with the remains of their grandfather seemed hardly worth while tho’ that was urged by some. All suggestions seemed to be equally impracticable, until the young man who had consented to be responsible for its proper disposition ‸keeping‸ & had thus brought such a skeleton into the house bethought himself of an uncle living at the west who was famous for antiquarian pursuits & doubtless would consider this a very desirable addition to his collection of relics It was a happy thought—the plate was duly packed off by express & the family relieved by this final departure. ‸of its presence among them.‸ However there was no rest yet for the unhappy plate— The uncle was shocked to think that ‸in‸ his relatives’ estimation his mania had so blunted his sense of propriety as to make him willing to expose his father’s coffin plate as a relic & in his displeasure he sent it at once to the old Sexton who was the cause of its wanderings with the injunction to bury it in the grave where it belonged & tell no mortal of it[s] whereabouts on pain of prosecution for his original misdemeanor— This the old gentleman promised to do & kept his secret for some time, but the garrulity of advanced age was too much for him & shortly before his death he divulged the sequel of this funny story—
