“She declared yesterday, mother, that she was not going to feed her hands until they got through mowing, if it took them until nightfall. She says you spoil all darkeys that come near you, and she is going to show them who is boss on her place. Kent infuriated her by telling her she would get herself into trouble if she did not look out; that her wheat was already overripe, and if she attempted to make her hands work over dinner hour they would leave it half cut; but advice to Aunt Clay always sends her in the opposite direction.”
“I wish I had not let Sue go over there. Most of those harvesters are strangers from another county, and they might do something desperate if Sarah antagonized them.”
“Don’t worry, mother, Cyrus Clay is over there, and he is sure to take good care of Sue.”
The morning was spent with much gay talk as they packed the presents. Mrs. Brown was the kind of woman who could enter into the feelings of young people. She seemed to be of their generation and was never shocked or astonished when in their talk she realized that things had changed since her day. She usually made the best of it and put it down to “progress” of some sort. They worked faithfully, and by twelve o’clock had tied up and labeled the last parcel to go in the last barrel.
“Come on, girls, let’s have an early lunch and then we can have our much needed and hard-earned rest. A good nap all around will make us feel like ourselves again.”
How good that lunch did taste! Molly had been so excited that she could not swallow food the evening before, and Mrs. Brown had been so busy looking after guests that she had forgotten to eat. Judy was the only one who had done justice to the supper, but, having tested it, she was more than willing to try the chicken salad again.
“Never mind washing the dishes; put them in a dish-pan for Ca’line. Get into your kimonos and take a good nap. I am sick for sleep,” yawned Mrs. Brown.
In five minutes they were dead to the world, lost in that midsummer afternoon sleep, the heaviest of all slumber. Everything was perfectly still except the bees, buzzing around the honey-suckle. A venturesome vine had made its way through Molly’s window, ever open in summer, and as Judy lay, half asleep, she amused herself by watching a great bumble bee sip honey from the fragrant flowers, and his humming was the last sound that she was conscious of hearing. It seemed like a minute, so heavily had she slept—it was really several hours—when she was awakened with a nightmare that the bee was as big as a horse and his humming was that of a thousand bees.
“Molly, Molly, listen, what is that noise?”
Molly, ever a light sleeper, was out of bed in a trice and at the front window. What a sight met her eyes! Coming up the avenue was a crowd of at least forty negroes, all of them carrying scythes and whetstones, the sweat pouring from their black faces and bared necks and hairy chests, their white teeth flashing and eyeballs rolling, the sun glinting on the sharp steel of their scythes, menace and fury darkening the face of every man and coming from them a mutter and hum truly like the buzzing of a thousand bees.