Far ahead to the right of the highway and beyond the thinly sown wheat a stretch of pine woodland was darkly limned against the western horizon, standing a gloomy advance guard of the shadows of the night.  At its foot the newer green of the late spring foliage took a frivolous aspect, presenting the effect of deep-tinted foam breaking against the impenetrable mass of darkness.

The boy trudged resolutely along the sandy road, reaching at intervals to grasp handfuls of sassafras leaves from the bushes beside the way.  From the ditch on the left a brown toad hopped slowly into the dust of the road.  On the worm-eaten rails of the fence, on the other side, a gray lizard glided swiftly like a stealthy shadow of the leaves of the poisonous oak.

Nicholas picked up a stone from the roadside and aimed it at the slimy little body, but his throw erred, and the missile fell harmlessly into the wheat field beyond, startling a blackbird with scarlet marks, which soared suddenly above the bearded grain and vanished, with a tremulous cry and a flame of outstretched wings, into the distant wood.

The sun had gone down behind the pines and a warm mist steamed up from the cooling earth, condensing into heavy dew on the dusty leaves of the plants in the ditch.  Above the lowering pines the horizon burned to a deep scarlet, like an inverted brazier at red heat, and one gigantic tree, rising beyond the jagged line of the forest, was silhouetted sharply against the enkindled clouds.  Suddenly, from the shadows of the long road, a voice rose plaintively.  It was rich and deep and colourific, and it seemed to hover close to the warmth of the earth, weighed down by its animal melody.  It had mingled so subtly with the stillness that it was as much a part of nature as the cry of a whip-poor-will beyond the thicket or the sunset in the pine-guarded west.  At first it came faintly, and the words were lost, but as Nicholas gained upon the singer he caught more clearly the air and the song.

  “Oh, de Ark hit came ter res’
      On-de-hill,
    Oh, de Ark hit came ter res’
      On-de-hill,
    En’ dar ole Noah stood,
    En’ spread his han’s abroad,
    Er sacri-fice ter-Gawd
      On-de-hill.”

Nicholas quickened his pace into a run and, in a moment, saw the stooping figure of an old negro toiling up the red clay hillside, a staff in his hand and a bag of meal on his shoulder.  In the vivid light of the sunset his stature was exaggerated in size, giving him an appearance at once picturesque and pathetic—­softening his rugged outline and magnifying the distortion of age.

As he ascended the gradual incline he planted his staff firmly in the soil, shifting his bag from side to side and uttering inaudible grunts in the pauses of his song.

  “En’ dar, mid flame en smoke,
    De great Jehovah s-poke. 
    En’ awful thunder b-roke,
      On-de-hill.”