"I reckon I'll stay and stir. You kin bring me some supper when you come. We'll be here half the night."
With another look up the road, where the sunlight was fast fading, she took up the wet bags which protected her dress, and passed under the shed, glad to sit down and rest her aching limbs. The shed was a primitive affair, but everything was convenient for syrup-boiling, and the two long boilers were full of the golden-brown liquid. There was nothing to do but to stir continually and keep a steady fire.
The short autumn twilight had died out, and the fields and woods were slipping into gloom. The cane-mill was in the overseer's yard, and back of it the quarter began. A multitude of sounds
came up to Religion's ear—the crying of babies, the laughing of children, the barking of dogs, the whistle of the boys rubbing off the mules, the scolding and calling of women for wood and water. Night was closing in. Religion stirred and thought.
All Dr. Buzzard's instructions had been carefully followed. He had come many times, performed a variety of strange operations, frightened and gladdened them all one day by declaring that the red scorpion had passed out of her body through her foot and run into the fire, that now all danger was passed, pocketed thirty dollars which Minnie and Religion had obtained by giving a lien on Beck, the old cow, all the corn in the crib, and every article of furniture their cabin held; and still Min was no better—was worse, indeed, with the worry of it all.
Some one was coming. "Is that you, Bud?" she called.
The unnatural laugh that answered her could belong to no one but Mack. Lifting a blazing stick above her head, she peered out into the darkness.
"Come fur youna," he mumbled. "Miss Tina goin' on drefful; come fur youna quick."
"You go, Religion," said a woman
who had come unperceived. "The Lord's gwine to cl'ar up some t'ings what's took place in this quarter. You go, an' I'll stay an' stir."