The children watched with deep interest as the procession formed, each man carrying a blazing pine-knot, passed down the one street of the quarter, and wound its slow way along the road that skirted two sides of the plantation, then half way up a little hill, where it gathered in a circle about the open grave.
Twilight was past, thick clouds hid the moon and the torches shone out like stars in the darkness.
"Mamma, what dey doin' now?" asked Harold.
"Listen! perhaps you may hear something," she answered, and as they almost held their breath to hear, a wild, sweet negro melody came floating upon the still night air.
"They're singing," whispered Vi, "singing Canaan, 'cause Uncle Mose, and little Baby Ben have got safe there."
No one spoke again till the strains had ceased with the ending of the hymn.
"Now Mr. Wood is talking, I suppose," remarked Eddie, in a subdued tone, "telling them we must all die, and which is the way to get to heaven."
"Else praying," said Vi.
"Mamma, what is die?" asked Harold leaning on her lap.
"If we love Jesus, darling, it is going home to be with him, and oh, so happy."