“What did you do?” asked the other.

“I went on hoein’ my beans.  There was the two children to be looked out for, you know.  But I ain’t mindin’ tellin’ you that I can’t look at a bean-row since without gettin’ sick to my stomach and feelin’ the goose-pimples start all over me.”

“How did you hear ’twan’t so?”

“Why, I was gettin’ in the hay—­up there where the oaks stand was our hay-field.  I remember how sick the smell of the hay made me, and when the sweat run down into my eyes I was glad to feel ’em smart and sting—­well, Abby, you just wait till you hear your Nathan’l is shot through the head and you’ll know how it was—­well, all of a sudden—­somebody took the fork out’n my hand an’—­an’ said—­’here, you drive an’ I’ll pitch ’—­and there—­’twas—­’twas——­”

“Why, Grandma Pritchard!  You’re——­”

“No, I ain’t, either; I ain’t such a fool, I hope!  Why, see me cry like a old numskull!  Ain’t it ridic’lous how you can talk ’bout deaths and buryin’s all right, and can’t tell of how somebody come back from the grave without—­where in th’ nation is my handkerchief!  Why, Abby, things ain’t never looked the same to me from that minute on.  I tell you—­I tell you—­I was real glad to see him!

“Good land, what time o’ day do you suppose it can be?  Susie!  Eddie!  Come, git your berries and start home!”

The two voices began to sound more faintly as the old woman’s crutch rang on the stones.  “Well, Abby, when I come up here and remember how I farmed it alone for four years, I say to myself that ‘twan’t only th’ men that set the slaves free.  Them that stayed to home was allowed to have their share in the good——­” The syllables blurred into an indistinguishable hum and there fell again upon the house its old mantle of silence.

As if aroused by this from an hypnotic spell, the girl on the hay sat up suddenly, pressing her hands over her eyes; but she did not shut out a thousand thronging visions.  There was not a sound but the loud throbbing of the pulses at her temples; but never again could there be silence for her in that spot.  The air was thick with murmurs which beat against her ears.  She was trembling as she slipped down from the hay and, walking unsteadily to the door, stood looking half-wildly out into the haunted twilight.

The faint sound of the brook rose liquid in the quiet evening air.

There, where the butternut tree stood, had been the garden!

The white birches answered with a rustling stir in all their lightly poised leaves.

Up there, where the oaks were, had been the hay-field!

The twilight darkened.  Through the forest, black on the crest of the overhanging mountain, shone suddenly the evening star.

There, before the door, had stood the waiting wood-sled!

The girl caught through the gathering dusk a gleam of magenta from the corner of the clearing.