So Dorothy, carrying the air, started off into “The Old Folks At Home.”
Never, thought Aunt Betty, had the old tune sounded so beautiful, as, with those clear young voices ringing out on the still air of the summer’s night, and when the last words,
Way down upon the Suwanee River,
Far from the old folks at home,
had died away, she was ready and eager for more. “Old Black Joe,” followed, then “Dixie,” and finally “Home, Sweet Home,” that classic whose luster time never has or never will dim, and which brought the tears to her eyes as it brought back recollections of childhood days.
Then, as if to mingle gayety with sadness, Ephraim was induced to execute a few of his choicest steps on a hard, bare spot of ground under one of the big oak trees, while Jim and Gerald whistled “Turkey in the Straw,” and kept time with their hands. The old negro’s agility was surprising, his legs and feet being as nimble, apparently, as when, years before as a young colored lad, he had gone through practically the same performance for Aunt Betty, then in the flower of her young womanhood.
After this the party sought the tents, where, on blankets spread on the ground, covered by sheets, and with rough pillows under their heads, each member of the party sought repose.
In one end of the tent occupied by Gerald and Jim slept old Ephraim, the watch-dog of the camp, who prided himself that no suspicious sound, however slight, could escape his keen ears in the night time.
The slumber of the party was undisturbed during the early hours of the night, as, with the tent flaps thrown back, to allow the clear passage of the cool breeze off the valley, the occupants of both tents slept soundly.
Sometime after midnight, however, the slumber of all was broken by a most startling incident. It was a cry of distress coming out of the night from farther down the mountainside—a cry so appealing in its pathos that Ephraim was on his feet, listening with open mouth, before the echoes had died away. Then, as he roused Gerald and Jim, the cry came again, reverberating over the mountain in trembling, piteous tones: