I leave them soon, and make my way up the stone steps to the “corn chamber,” where tranquillity is crowned.  In the whitewashed room the corn lies in drifts and ridges, three to four feet deep, all silvery-dun, like some remote sand desert, lifeless beneath the moon.  Here it lies, and into it, staggering under the sacks, George-the-Gaul and Jim-the-Early Saxon tramp up to their knees, spill the sacks over their heads, and out again; and above where their feet have plunged the patient surface closes again, smooth.  And as I stand there in the doorway, looking at that silvery corn drift, I think of the whole process, from seed sown to the last sieving into this tranquil resting-place.  I think of the slow, dogged ploughman, with the crows above him on the wind; of the swing of the sower’s arm, dark up against grey sky on the steep field.  I think of the seed snug-burrowing for safety, and its mysterious ferment under the warm Spring rain, of the soft green shoots tapering up so shyly toward the first sun, and hardening in air to thin wiry stalk.  I think of the unnumerable tiny beasts that have jangled in that pale forest; of the winged blue jewels of butterfly risen from it to hover on the wild-rustling blades; of that continual music played there by the wind; of the chicory and poppy flowers that have been its lights-o’ love, as it grew tawny and full of life, before the appointed date when it should return to its captivity.  I think of that slow-travelling hum and swish which laid it low, of the gathering to stack, and the long waiting under the rustle and drip of the sheltering trees, until yesterday the hoot of the thresher blew, and there began the falling into this dun silvery peace.  Here it will lie with the pale sun narrowly filtering in on it, and by night the pale moon, till slowly, week by week, it is stolen away, and its ridges and drifts sink and sink, and the beasts have eaten it all....

When the dusk is falling, I go out to them again.  They have nearly finished now; the chaff in the chaff-shed is mounting hillock-high; only the little barley stack remains unthreshed.  Mrs. George-the-Gaul is standing with a jug to give drink to the tired ones.  Some stars are already netted in the branches of the pines; the Guinea-fowl are silent.  But still the harmonious thresher hums and showers from three sides the straw, the chaff, the corn; and the men fork, and rake, and cart, and carry, sleep growing in their muscles, silence on their tongues, and the tranquillity of the long day nearly ended in their souls.  They will go on till it is quite dark. 1911.

THAT OLD-TIME PLACE

“Yes, suh—­here we are at that old-time place!” And our dark driver drew up his little victoria gently.

Through the open doorway, into a dim, cavernous, ruined house of New Orleans we passed.  The mildew and dirt, the dark denuded dankness of that old hostel, rotting down with damp and time!