Graveyard

   I was walking past the graveyard one day when I saw some men with a
wagon in the graveyard. I crept closer to see what they were doing.
I discovered, to my horror, that they were digging up a corpse. In those
days, grave robbing was a very serious offense, but medical students had
been known to pay large sums of money for the cadavers that they could not
obtain legally in Ireland -- so some people made a practice of it.
   I decided that I should leave, because I was afraid of what they might
do to me if they found me. To my horror, they stopped digging and moved
towards the wagon. There was no place to hide! Quickly I jumped into
the back of the wagon. I crawled into a sack that was lying there, and
made my self very small, and prayed that they would not notice me.
   There was a **THUNK** and another sack was tossed on me. From the
stench I knew that the poor unfortunate corpse was beside me! I was
terrified of the corpse, but more terrified of the grave robbers.
I did not say a word, or move, but I began thinking about every Saint
that I could remember, and wishing that I had led a better life.
   The wagon pulled off, and began to travel over rough terrain. There
were several large holes in the road. Still I had not been discovered.
Finally, after several good bumps, the driver of the wagon turned to
his friend and said "Now we wouldn't want to lose old Nick, would
we Sean? You had better check and see that he hasn't bounced out!"
The other man turned, and put his hand into the bag I was hiding in and
touched my cheek.
   "Holy Mary Mother of God!" he cried. "Patrick -- He's WARM!"
   "Yes," I quipped. "And when you've been in Hell for as long as I have,
you'll be warm too!" I croaked.
   The men screamed, lept off the wagon, and ran away shooing the horses
ahead of them. After the horses had run on for a while, I kicked out the
body, outside a Church, and hoped that he would be well taken care of.
I took the horses to a town, and sold both them and the wagon. With
the money, I bought a ticket on the boat that left next morning for
Canada. Which is how I ended up here.

THE END