orchards; and the wheat and the young corn waved in the wet breeze. The
land was rolling and red in colour, with beautiful trees and narrow
rivers. Eastward it descended to misty plains, westward the mountains
rose, bounding a noble landscape of field and forest. For many years the
axe had swung and trees had fallen, but the forest yet descended to the
narrow roads, observed itself in winding streams, gloomed upon the
sunlit clearings where negroes sang as they tilled the soil. In the
all-surrounding green the plantations showed like intaglios. From
pleasant hillsides, shady groves, and hamlets of offices and quarters,
the sedate red-brick, white-porticoed "great houses" looked easily
forth upon a world which interested them mightily.

Upon a morning in late April of the year 1804, the early sunshine,
overflowing such a plantation, dipped at last into a hollow halfway
between the house and the lower gates, and overtook two young creatures
playing at make-believe, their drama of the moment being that of the
runaway servant.

"Oh, the sun!" wailed Deb. "We can't pretend it's dark any longer! God
has gone and made another day! We'll see you running away,--all of us
white folk, and the overseer and Mammy Chloe! If you climb this willow,
the dogs will tree you like they did Aunt Dinah's Jim! Lie down and I'll
cover you with leaves like the babes in the wood!"

Miranda, a slim black limb of Satan in a blue cotton gown, flung herself
with promptitude upon the ground. "Heap de beech leaves an' de oak
leaves upon dis heah po' los' niggah. Oh, my lan'! don' you heah 'um
comin'?"

Dead leaves fell upon her in a shower, and her accomplice gathered more