the sight of negroes, one singing a hymn. Oh, the memories, the
memories!

By and by he reached the edge of his father's land, climbed to the
topmost rail of the boundary fence and sat there, his eyes glued to
the whole scene. It lay outspread before him, the entirety of that
farm. He had never realized before how little there was of it, how
little! He could see all around it, except where the woods hid the
division fence on one side. And the house, standing in the still
air of the winter afternoon, with its rotting roof and low red
chimneys partly obscured by scraggy cedars--how small it had
become! How poor, how wretched everything--the woodpile, the cabin,
the hen-house, the ice-house, the barn! Was this any part of the
great world? It was one picture of desolation, the creeping
paralysis of a house and farm. Did anything even move?

Something did move. A column of blue smoke moved straight and thin
from the chimney of his father's and mother's room. In a far corner
of the stable lot, pawing and nozzling some remnants of fodder,
were the old horses. By the hay-rick he discovered one of the
sheep, the rest being on the farther side. The cows by and by filed
slowly around from behind the barn and entered the doorless milking
stalls. Suddenly his dog emerged from one of those stalls, trotting
cautiously, then with a playful burst of speed went in a streak
across the lot toward the kitchen. A negro man issued from the
cabin, picked out a log, knocked the ashes out of his pipe in the
palm of his hand, and began to cut the firewood for the night.

All this did not occur at once: he had been sitting there a long
time--heart-sick with the thought of the tragedy he was bringing