The latest date on any of the headstones was 1780.

A crop of very funny epitaphs sprung up here and there among the overgrown thistles and burdocks, and almost every tablet had a death's-head with cross-bones engraved upon it, or else a puffy round face with a pair of wings stretching out from the ears, like this: Cherub Graphic These mortuary emblems furnished me with congenial food for reflection.
I used to lie in the long grass, and speculate on the advantages and disadvantages of being a cherub.
I forget what I thought the advantages were, but I remember distinctly of getting into an inextricable tangle on two points: How could a cherub, being all head and wings, manage to sit down when he was tired?
To have to sit down on the back of his head struck me as an awkward alternative.

Again: Where did a cherub carry those indispensable articles (such as jack-knives, marbles, and pieces of twine) which boys in an earthly state of existence usually stow away in their trousers-pockets?
These were knotty questions, and I was never able to dispose of them satisfactorily.
Meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb would scour the whole town in search of me.
He finally discovered my retreat, and dropped in on me abruptly one afternoon, while I was deep in the cherub problem.
"Look here, Tom Bailey!" said Pepper, shying a piece of clam-shell indignantly at the file jacet on a neighboring gravestone.

"You are just going to the dogs! Can't you tell a fellow what in thunder ails you, instead of prowling round among the tombs like a jolly old vampire ?" "Pepper," I replied, solemnly, "don't ask me.

All is not well here"-- touching my breast mysteriously.