“Miss Hood?! I will nay longer come to school!”
“Edward! What?”
“Miss Hood, my father says there is a ghost wandering around the graveyard nearby!”
“Edward, your father keeps telling people all kind of hokeypokey stories. About everything, about the store, the mine, and now the graveyard.”
“Nay, Miss Hood, it’s true! He says the ghost is hovering above the graves at night!”
“Young man! Do not make me laugh. You will come to school tomorrow!”
“NAY”
Church houses weren’t just ordinary churches in the Wild West, where the pious met every Sunday, but they also served as schoolhouses were the townsfolks’ and farmers’ children congregated to learn about the things outside their homes. The churches also served as communal meeting places in small towns that did not have a town hall or any other spacious location where people could gather, also, sometimes the preacher was a person with the highest formal education nearby and was able to read and write letters. Illiteracy was still a thing at the frontier, especially in the early 19th century.
Inevitably connected to the church was the cemetery, where the dead were buried. Those unfortunate enough to take the Wild West lightly!