'We-uns hev got a baby at our house, too, an' we don't want yourn, ma'am; much obleeged, all the same,' she said, with a laugh. But she looked back with a sort of pity for that alert maternal fear, and she never mentioned to the youngest brother, a persistent trapper, the little family of raccoons in the woods.
She had forgotten the voice raised in importunate supplication on the 'bald,' until, pursuing the path, she was led into the road, hard by a little bridge, or more properly culvert, which had rotted long ago; the vines came up through the cavities in the timbers, and a blackberry bush, with a wren's nest, flourished in their midst. The road was fain to wade through the stream; but the channel was dry now—a narrow belt of yellow sand lying in a long curving vista in the midst of the dense woods. A yoke of oxen, drawing a rude slide, paused to rest in the middle of the channel, and beside them was a man, of medium height, slender but sinewy, dressed in brown jeans, his trousers thrust into the legs of his boots, a rifle on his shoulder, and a broad-brimmed old wool hat surmounting his dark hair, that hung down to the collar of his coat. Her singing had prepared him for her advent, but he barely raised his eyes. That quick glance was incongruous with his dullard aspect; it held a spark of fire, inspiration, frenzy—who can say?
He spoke suddenly, in a meek, drawling way, and with the air of submitting the proposition:
'I hev gin the beastises a toler'ble hard day's work, an' I'm a-favourin' 'em goin' home.'
A long pause ensued. The oxen hung down their weary heads, with the symbol of slavery upon them. The smell of ferns and damp mould was on the air. Rotting logs lay here and there, where the failing water had stranded them. The grape-vine, draping the giant oaks, swayed gently, and suggested an observation to break the silence.
'How air the moral vineyard a-thrivin'?' she asked solemnly.
He looked downcast. 'Toler'ble, I reckon.'
'I hearn tell ez thar war a right smart passel o' folks baptized over yander in Scolacutta River,' she remarked encouragingly.
'I baptized fourteen.'
She turned the warm brightness of her eyes upon him. 'They hed all fund grace!' she exclaimed.