the very sweep of the dark hair tumbled about her brow. Smitten of
this sight, he would fain have had view again. Alas! it was as when,
upon a crowded street, one gazes at the passing figure of him whose
presence smites with the swift call of friendship--and turns, only to
see this unknown friend swallowed up in the crowd for ever. Thus had
passed the view of this young girl of the Big House; and there
remained no sort of footing upon which he could base a hope of a
better fortune. Henceforth he must count himself apart from all Big
House affairs. He was an outcast, a pariah. Disgusted, he rose from
his rude seat at the window ledge and walked up the platform. He
found it too sunny, and returned to take a seat again upon a broken
truck near by.

There was a little country store close to the platform, so built that
it almost adjoined the ware-room of the railway station; this being
the place where the colored folk of the neighborhood purchased their
supplies. At the present moment, this building seemed to lack much of
its usual occupancy, yet there arose, now and again, sounds of low
conversation partly audible through the open window. The voices were
those of negroes, and they spoke guardedly, but eagerly, with some
peculiar quality in their speech which caught the sixth sense of the
Southerner, accustomed always to living upon the verge of a certain
danger. The fact that they were speaking thus in so public a place,
and at the mid-hour of the working day, was of itself enough to
attract the attention of any white dweller of that region.

"I tell yuh," said one, "it's gone fah 'nough. Who runs de fahms, who
makes de cotton, who does de wu'k for all dis heah lan'? Who used to
run de gov'ment, and who orter now, if it ain't us black folks? Dey
throw us out, an' dey won't let us vote, an' we-all know we gotter