Matters now looked serious, and about nine o'clock Mr. Loudon, with two
of the neighbors, started out into the woods to look for Aunt Matilda's
young guardian.

Kate's mother was away on a visit to her relations in another county,
and so the little girl passed the night on the sofa in the parlor, with
a colored woman asleep on the rug before the fireplace. Kate would not
go to bed. She determined to stay awake until Harry should come home.
But the sofa-cushions became more and more pleasant, and very soon she
was dreaming that Harry had shot a giraffe, and had skinned it, and had
stuffed the skin full of sumac-leaves, and that he and she were pulling
it through the woods, and that the legs caught in the trees and they
could not get it along, and then she woke up. It was bright daylight.
But Harry had not come!

There was no news. Mr. Loudon and his friends were still absent. Poor
Kate was in despair, and could not touch the breakfast, which was
prepared at the usual hour.

About nine o'clock a company of negro sumac gatherers appeared on the
road which passed Mr. Loudon's house. It was a curious party. On a rude
cart, drawn by two little oxen, was a pile of bags filled with
sumac-leaves, which were supported by poles stuck around the cart and
bound together by ropes. On the top of the pile sat a negro, plying a
long whip and shouting to the oxen. Behind the cart, and on each side of
it, were negroes, men and women, carrying huge bales of sumac on their
heads. Bags, pillow-cases, bed-ticks, sheets and coverlets had been
called into requisition to hold the precious leaves. Here was a woman
with a great bundle on her head, which sank down so as to almost