"Good for you!" said one of us. "That's the way to begin the day." His
good nature was magnetic.

"Yes," he laughed, "we sing in Sheldon from morning till night."

"Sheldon's evidently a good place to know," I said. "I will make a note
of that for New Yorkers."

So, reader, sometimes when the world seems all wrong, and life a very
doubtful speculation, you may care to know of a place where the days go
so blithely that men actually sing from morning till night! Sheldon
Center is that place. You can find it on any map, and I can testify that
the news is true.

And the men that thus sang from morning till night--what was the trade
they worked and sang at?

We gathered from a few dropped words that they were engaged on some work
over at the church--masonry, no doubt--and, as they left the
breakfast-table, in a laughing knot, to begin the day's work, they
suggested our giving a look in at them on our way. This we promised to
do, for a merrier, better-hearted lot of fellows it would be hard to
find. To meet them was to feel a warm glow of human comradeship. Healthy,
normal, happy fellows, enjoying their work as men should, and taking life
as it came with sane, unconscious gusto; it was a tonic encounter to be
in their company.

They were grave-diggers, engaged in renovating the village churchyard!