Overhead a little breeze became entangled in the palmetto fronds, setting them softly clashing together as though a million unseen elfin hands were welcoming his return; the big black-and-gold butterflies, beating up against the sudden air current, flapped back to their honeyed haven in the orange grove; bold, yellow-eyed grackle stared at him from the grass; a bird like a winged streak of flame flashed through the jungle and was gone.
And now every breath he drew was quickening his pulses with the sense of home-coming; he saw the red-bellied woodpeckers sticking like shreds of checked gingham to the trees, turning their pointed heads incuriously as he passed; the welling notes of a wren bubbled upward through the sun-shot azure; high in the vault above an eagle was passing seaward, silver of tail and crest, winged with bronze; and everywhere on every side glittered the gold-and-saffron dragon-flies of the South like the play of sunbeams on a green lagoon.
Under the sapodilla-trees on the lawn two aged, white-clad negro servants were gathering fruit forbidden them; and at sight of him two wrinkled black hands furtively wiped two furrowed faces free from incriminating evidence; two solemn pairs of eyes rolled piously in his direction.
"Mohnin', suh, Mistuh Hamil."
"Good morning, Jonas; good morning, Archimedes. Mr. Cardross is in the orange grove, I see."
And, smiling, passed the guilty ones with a humorously threatening shake of his head.
A black boy, grinning, opened the gate; the quick-stepping figure in white flannels glanced around at the click of the latch.
"Hamil! Good work! I am glad to see you!"—his firm, sun-burnt hands closing over Hamil's—"glad all through!"
"Not as glad as I am, Mr. Cardross—"
"Yes, I am. Why didn't you come before? The weather has been heavenly; everybody wanted you—"