The Choir Invisible | Page 8

slaughter and starvation of their kind. A little while back and a
maddened buffalo or a wounded elk might have trodden him down and
gored him to death in that thicket and no one have ever learned his
fate--as happened to many a solitary hunter. He could not feel sure that
hiding in the leaves of the branches against which his hat sometimes
brushed there did not lie the panther, the hungrier for the fawns that had
been driven from the near coverts. A swift lowering of its head, a tense
noiseless spring, its fangs buried in his neck,--with no knife the contest
would not have gone well with him. But of deadly big game he saw no
sign that day. Once from a distant brake he was surprised to hear the
gobble of the wild turkey; and more surprised still--and

delighted--when the trail led to a twilight gloom and coolness, and at
the green margin of a little spring he saw a stag drinking. It turned its
terrified eyes upon him for an instant and then bounded away like a
gray shadow.
When he had gone about two miles, keeping his face steadily toward
the sun, he came upon evidences of a clearing: burnt and fallen timber;
a field of sprouting maize; another of young wheat; a peach orchard
flushing all the green around with its clouds of pink; beyond this a
garden of vegetables; and yet farther on, a log house.
He was hurrying on toward the house; but as he passed the garden he
saw standing in one corner, with a rake in her hand, a beautifully
formed woman in homespun, and near by a negro lad dropping
garden-seed. His eyes lighted up with pleasure; and changing his course
at once, he approached and leaned on the picket fence.
"How do you do, Mrs. Falconer?"
She turned with a cry, dropping her rake and pushing her sun-bonnet
back from her eyes.
"How unkind to frighten me!" she said, laughing as she recognized him;
and then she came over to the fence and gave him her hand--beautiful,
but hardened by work. A faint colour had spread over her face.
"I didn't mean to frighten you," he replied, smiling at her fondly. "But I
had rapped on the fence twice. I suppose you took me for a flicker. Or
you were too busy with your gardening to hear me. Or, may be you
were too deep in your own thoughts."
"How do you happen to be out of school so early?" she asked, avoiding
the subject.
"I was through with the lessons."
"You must have hurried."

"I did."
"And is that the way you treat people's children?"
"That's the way I treated them to-day."
"And then you came straight out here?"
"As straight and fast as my legs could carry me--with a good many
interruptions."
She searched his face eagerly for a moment. Then her eyes fell and she
turned back to the seed-planting. He stood leaning over the fence with
his hat in his hand, glancing impatiently at the house.
"How can you respect yourself, to stand there idling and see me hard at
work?" she said at length, without looking, at him.
"But you do the work so well--better than I could! Besides, you are
obeying a Divine law. I have no right to keep you from doing the will
of God. I observe you as one of the daughters of Eve--under the curse
of toil."
"There's no Divine command that I should plant beans. But it is my
command that Amy shall. And this is Amy's work. Aren't you willing
to work for her?" she asked, slowly raising her eyes to his face.
"I am willing to work for her, but I am not willing to do her work!" he
replied." If the queen sits quietly in the parlour, eating bread and
honey"--and he nodded, protesting, toward the house.
"The queen's not in the parlour, eating bread and honey. She has gone
to town to stay with Kitty Poythress till after the ball."
She noted how his expression instantly changed, and how, unconscious
of his own action, he shifted his face back to the direction of the town.
"Her uncle was to take her in to-morrow," she went on, still watching
him, "but no! she and Kitty must see each other to-night; and her uncle

must be sure to bring her party finery in the gig to-morrow. I'm sorry
you had your walk for nothing; but you'll stay to supper?"
"Thank you; I must go back presently."
"Didn't you expect to stay when you came?"
He flushed and laughed in confusion.
"If you'll stay, I'll make you a johnny-cake on a new ash shingle with
my own hands."
"Thank you, I really must go back. But if there's a