Freda's Adopted Grave

"Freda's Adopted Grave" is a poignant short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery that explores themes of love, loss, and the enduring connection between people and places. The narrative follows the character of Freda, who forms a deep bond with a grave she adopts, creating a personal and emotional anchor in her life. Through lyrical prose and vivid imagery, Montgomery delves into the complexities of grief and the solace that can be found in memory and devotion. This poignant tale reflects the author’s signature style of blending the everyday with the profound, making it a touching read for fans of her work and newcomers alike.

• Short story

								
North Point, where Freda lived, was the bleakest settlement in the
world. Even its inhabitants, who loved it, had to admit that. The
northeast winds swept whistling up the bay and blew rawly over the
long hill that sloped down to it, blighting everything that was in
their way. Only the sturdy firs and spruces could hold their own
against it. So there were no orchards or groves or flower gardens in
North Point.

Just over the hill, in a sheltered southwest valley, was the North
Point church with the graveyard behind it, and this graveyard was the
most beautiful spot in North Point or near it. The North Point folk
loved flowers. They could not have them about their homes, so they had
them in their graveyard. It was a matter of pride with each family to
keep the separate plot neatly trimmed and weeded and adorned with
beautiful blossoms.

It was one of the unwritten laws of the little community that on some
selected day in May everybody would repair to the graveyard to plant,
trim and clip. It was not an unpleasant duty, even to those whose
sorrow was fresh. It seemed as if they were still doing something for
the friends who had gone when they made their earthly resting places
beautiful.

As for the children, they looked forward to "Graveyard Day" as a very
delightful anniversary, and it divided its spring honours with the
amount of the herring catch.

"Tomorrow is Graveyard Day," said Minnie Hutchinson at school recess,
when all the little girls were sitting on the fence. "Ain't I glad!
I've got the loveliest big white rosebush to plant by Grandma
Hutchinson's grave. Uncle Robert sent it out from town."

"My mother has ten tuberoses to set out," said Nan Gray proudly.

"We're going to plant a row of lilies right around our plot," said
Katie Morris.

Every little girl had some boast to make, that is, every little girl
but Freda. Freda sat in a corner all by herself and felt miserably
outside of everything. She had no part or lot in Graveyard Day.

"Are you going to plant anything, Freda?" asked Nan, with a wink at
the others.

Freda shook her head mutely.

"Freda can't plant anything," said Winnie Bell cruelly, although she
did not mean to be cruel. "She hasn't got a grave."

Just then Freda felt as if her gravelessness were a positive disgrace
and crime, as if not to have an interest in a single grave in North
Point cemetery branded you as an outcast forever and ever. It very
nearly did in North Point. The other little girls pitied Freda, but at
the same time they rather looked down upon her for it with the
complacency of those who had been born into a good heritage of family
graves and had an undisputed right to celebrate Graveyard Day.

Freda felt that her cup of wretchedness was full. She sat miserably on
the fence while the other girls ran off to play, and she walked home
alone at night. It seemed to her that she could not bear it any
longer.

Freda was ten years old. Four years ago Mrs. Wilson had taken her from
the orphan asylum in town. Mrs. Wilson lived just this side of the
hill from the graveyard, and everybody in North Point called her a
"crank." They pitied any child she took, they said. It would be worked
to death and treated like a slave. At first they tried to pump Freda
concerning Mrs. Wilson's treatment of her, but Freda was not to be
pumped. She was a quiet little mite, with big, wistful dark eyes that
had a disconcerting fashion of looking the gossips out of countenance.
But if Freda had been disposed to complain, the North Point people
would have found out that they had been only too correct in their
predictions.

"Mrs. Wilson," Freda said timidly that night, "why haven't we got a
grave?"

Mrs. Wilson averred that such a question gave her the "creeps."

"You ought to be very thankful that we haven't," she said severely.
"That Graveyard Day is a heathenish custom, anyhow. They make a
regular picnic of it, and it makes me sick to hear those school girls
chattering about what they mean to plant, each one trying to outblow
the other. If I had a grave there, I wouldn't make a flower garden
of it!"

Freda did not go to the graveyard the next day, although it was a
holiday. But in the evening, when everybody had gone home, she crept
over the hill and through the beech grove to see what had been done.
The plots were all very neat and prettily set out with plants and
bulbs. Some perennials were already in bud. The grave of Katie Morris'
great-uncle, who had been dead for forty years, was covered with
blossoming purple pansies. Every grave, no matter how small or old,
had its share of promise--every grave except one. Freda came across it
with a feeling of surprise. It was away down in the lower corner where
there were no plots. It was shut off from the others by a growth of
young poplars and was sunken and overgrown with blueberry shrubs.
There was no headstone, and it looked dismally neglected. Freda felt a
sympathy for it. She had no grave, and this grave had nobody to tend
it or care for it.

When she went home she asked Mrs. Wilson whose it was.

"Humph!" said Mrs. Wilson. "If you have so much spare time lying round
loose, you'd better put it into your sewing instead of prowling about
graveyards. Do you expect me to work my fingers to the bone making
clothes for you? I wish I'd left you in the asylum. That grave is
Jordan Slade's, I suppose. He died twenty years ago, and a worthless,
drunken scamp he was. He served a term in the penitentiary for
breaking into Andrew Messervey's store, and after it he had the face
to come back to North Point. But respectable people would have nothing
to do with him, and he went to the dogs altogether--had to be buried
on charity when he died. He hasn't any relations here. There was a
sister, a little girl of ten, who used to live with the Cogswells over
at East Point. After Jord died, some rich folks saw her and was so
struck with her good looks that they took her away with them. I don't
know what become of her, and I don't care. Go and bring the cows up."

When Freda went to bed that night her mind was made up. She would
adopt Jordan Slade's grave.

Thereafter, Freda spent her few precious spare-time moments in the
graveyard. She clipped the blueberry shrubs and long, tangled grasses
from the grave with a pair of rusty old shears that blistered her
little brown hands badly. She brought ferns from the woods to plant
about it. She begged a root of heliotrope from Nan Gray, a clump of
day lilies from Katie Morris, a rosebush slip from Nellie Bell, some
pansy seed from old Mrs. Bennett, and a geranium shoot from Minnie
Hutchinson's big sister. She planted, weeded and watered faithfully,
and her efforts were rewarded. "Her" grave soon looked as nice as any
in the graveyard.

Nobody but Freda knew about it. The poplar growth concealed the corner
from sight, and everybody had quite forgotten poor, disreputable

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