always, though upon occasions fiercely savage, this life took hold
upon that of a hundred years ago. These strings of blacks, who now,
answering the plantation bell, slowly crawled down the lane to the
outlying fields, might still have been slaves. This lazy plow,
tickling the opulent earth, might have been handled by a slave rather
than by this hired servitor, whose quavering, plaintive song, broken
mid-bar betimes, now came back across the warm distances which lay
trembling in the rays of the advancing sun. These other dark-skinned
servants, dawdling along the galleries, or passing here and yonder
from the detached quarters of kitchen, and cook-room, and laundry and
sleeping-rooms--they also humming musically at their work, too full
of the sun and the certainty of comfort to need to hurry even with a
song--all these might also have been tenants of an old-time estate,
giving slow service in return for a life of carelessness and
irresponsibility. This was in the South, in the Delta, the garden of
the South, the garden of America; a country crude, primitive,
undeveloped in modern ways, as one might say, yet by right entitled
to its own assuredness. It asked nothing of all the world.

All this deep rich soil was given to the people of that land by
Father Messasebe. Yards deep it lay, anciently rich, kissed by a sun
which caused every growing thing to leap into swift fruition. The
entire lesson of the scene was one of an absolute fecundity. The
grass was deep and green and lush. The sweet peas and the roses and
the morning-glories, and the honeysuckles on the lattice, hung ranks
deep in blossoms. A hundred flocks of fowl ran clucking and chirping
about the yard. Across the lawn a mother swine led her brood of
squeaking and squealing young. A half-hundred puppies, toddlers or
half-grown, romped about, unused fragments of the great hunting pack
of the owner of this kingdom. Life, perhaps short, perhaps rude,