illumined the horizon. There was no motion in the heavy black
foliage, but it was filled with the shrill droning of the summer
insects, and high in the branches a screech-owl pierced the air with
its keen, quavering scream.

"Tennessee!" exclaimed Birt, as the unwelcome sound fell upon his
ear--"Tennessee! run an' put the shovel in the fire!"

Whether the shovel, becoming hot among the live coals, burned the
owl that was high in the tree-top outside, according to the
countryside superstition, or whether by a singular coincidence, he
discovered that he had business elsewhere, he was soon gone, and the
night was left to the chorusing katydids and tree-toads and to the
weird, fitful illuminations of the noiseless heat lightning.

Birt Dicey rose suddenly and walked away silently into the dense,
dark woods.

"Stop, Tennessee! ye can't go too!" exclaimed Mrs. Dicey, appearing
in the doorway just in time to intercept the juvenile excursionist.
"Ketch her, Rufus! Ef she wouldn't hev followed Birt right off in
the pitch dark! She ain't afeared o' nothin' when Birt is thar.
Git that pomegranate she hed an' gin it ter her ter keep her from
hollerin', Rufe; I hed a sight ruther hear the squeech-owEL."

Tennessee, overpowered by disappointment, sobbed herself to sleep
upon the floor, and then ensued an interval of quiet. Rufe, a
towheaded boy of ten, dressed in an unbleached cotton shirt and
blue-checked homespun trousers, concluded that this moment was the
accepted time to count the balls in his brother's shot-pouch. This