Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The
tall pines lost their slimness and stood in wide blurred blotches all
across the way, and a great shadowy bird arose, wheeled and melted,
murmuring, into the black-green sky.
The boy wearily dropped his heavy bundle and stood still, listening as
the voice of crickets split the shadows and made the silence audible. A
tear wandered down his brown cheek. They were at supper now, he
whispered--the father and old mother, away back yonder beyond the night.
They were far away; they would never be as near as once they had been,
for he had stepped into the world. And the cat and Old Billy--ah, but
the world was a lonely thing, so wide and tall and empty! And so bare,
so bitter bare! Somehow he had never dreamed of the world as lonely
before; he had fared forth to beckoning hands and luring, and to the
eager hum of human voices, as of some great, swelling music.
Yet now he was alone; the empty night was closing all about him here in
a strange land, and he was afraid. The bundle with his earthly treasure
had hung heavy and heavier on his shoulder; his little horde of money
was tightly wadded in his sock, and the school lay hidden somewhere far
away in the shadows. He wondered how far it was; he looked and harkened,
starting at his own heartbeats, and fearing more and more the long dark
fingers of the night.
Then of a sudden up from the darkness came music. It was human music,
but of a wildness and a weirdness that startled the boy as it fluttered
and danced across the dull red waters of the swamp. He hesitated, then
impelled by some strange power, left the highway and slipped into the
forest of the swamp, shrinking, yet following the song hungrily and half
forgetting his fear. A harsher, shriller note struck in as of many and
ruder voices; but above it flew the first sweet music, birdlike,
abandoned, and the boy crept closer.
The cabin crouched ragged and black at the edge of black waters. An old
chimney leaned drunkenly against it, raging with fire and smoke, while
through the chinks winked red gleams of warmth and wild cheer. With a
revel of shouting and noise, the music suddenly ceased. Hoarse staccato
cries and peals of laughter shook the old hut, and as the boy stood
there peering through the black trees, abruptly the door flew open and a
flood of light illumined the wood.
Amid this mighty halo, as on clouds of flame, a girl was dancing. She
was black, and lithe, and tall, and willowy. Her garments twined and
flew around the delicate moulding of her dark, young, half-naked limbs.
A heavy mass of hair clung motionless to her wide forehead. Her arms
twirled and flickered, and body and soul seemed quivering and whirring
in the poetry of her motion.
As she danced she sang. He heard her voice as before, fluttering like a
bird's in the full sweetness of her utter music. It was no tune nor
melody, it was just formless, boundless music. The boy forgot himself
and all the world besides. All his darkness was sudden light; dazzled he
crept forward, bewildered, fascinated, until with one last wild whirl
the elf-girl paused. The crimson light fell full upon the warm and
velvet bronze of her face--her midnight eyes were aglow, her full purple
lips apart, her half hid bosom panting, and all the music dead.
Involuntarily the boy gave a gasping cry and awoke to swamp and night
and fire, while a white face, drawn, red-eyed, peered outward from some
hidden throng within the cabin.
"Who's that?" a harsh voice cried.
"Where?" "Who is it?" and pale crowding faces blurred the light.
The boy wheeled blindly and fled in terror stumbling through the swamp,
hearing strange sounds and feeling stealthy creeping hands and arms and
whispering voices. On he toiled in mad haste, struggling toward the road
and losing it until finally beneath the shadows of a mighty oak he sank
exhausted. There he lay a while trembling and at last drifted into
dreamless sleep.
It was morning when he awoke and threw a startled glance upward to the
twisted branches of the oak that bent above, sifting down sunshine on
his brown face and close curled hair. Slowly he remembered the
loneliness, the fear and wild running through the dark. He laughed in
the bold courage of day and stretched himself.
Then suddenly he bethought him again of that vision of the night--the
waving arms and flying limbs of the girl, and her great black eyes
looking into the night and calling him. He could hear her now, and hear
that wondrous savage music. Had it been real? Had he dreamed? Or had it
been some witch-vision of the night, come to tempt and lure him to his
undoing? Where was that black and flaming cabin? Where was the girl--the
soul that had called him? _She_ must have been real; she had to live and
dance and sing; he must again look into the mystery of her great eyes.
And he sat up in sudden determination, and, lo! gazed straight into the
very eyes of his dreaming.
She sat not four feet from him, leaning against the great tree, her
eyes now languorously abstracted, now alert and quizzical with mischief.
She seemed but half-clothed, and her warm, dark flesh peeped furtively
through the rent gown; her thick, crisp hair was frowsy and rumpled, and
the long curves of her bare young arms gleamed in the morning sunshine,
glowing with vigor and life. A little mocking smile came and sat upon
her lips.
"What you run for?" she asked, with dancing mischief in her eyes.
"Because--" he hesitated, and his cheeks grew hot.
"I knows," she said, with impish glee, laughing low music.
"Why?" he challenged, sturdily.
"You was a-feared."
He bridled. "Well, I reckon you'd be a-feared if you was caught out in
the black dark all alone."
"Pooh!" she scoffed and hugged her knees. "Pooh! I've stayed out all
alone heaps o' nights."
He looked at her with a curious awe.
"I don't believe you," he asserted; but she tossed her head and her eyes
grew scornful.
"Who's a-feared of the dark? I love night." Her eyes grew soft.
He watched her silently, till, waking from her daydream, she abruptly
asked:
"Where you from?"
"Georgia."
"Where's that?"
He looked at her in surprise, but she seemed matter-of-fact.
"It's away over yonder," he answered.
"Behind where the sun comes up?"
"Oh, no!"
"Then it ain't so far," she declared. "I knows where the sun rises, and
I knows where it sets." She looked up at its gleaming splendor glinting
through the leaves, and, noting its height, announced abruptly:
"I'se hungry."
"So'm I," answered the boy, fumbling at his bundle; and then, timidly:
"Will you eat with me?"
"Yes," she said, and watched him with eager eyes.
Untying the strips of cloth, he opened his box, and disclosed chicken
and biscuits, ham and corn-bread. She clapped her hands in glee.
"Is there any water near?" he asked.
Without a word, she bounded up and flitted off like a brown bird,
gleaming dull-golden in the sun, glancing in and out among the trees,
till she paused above a tiny black pool, and then came tripping and
swaying back with hands held cupwise and dripping with cool water.
"Drink," she cried. Obediently he bent over the little hands that seemed
so soft and thin. He took a deep draught; and then to drain the last
drop, his hands touched hers and the shock of flesh first meeting flesh
startled them both, while the water rained through. A moment their eyes
looked deep into each other's--a timid, startled gleam in hers; a wonder
in his. Then she said dreamily:
"We'se known us all our lives, and--before, ain't we?"
He hesitated.
"Ye--es--I reckon," he slowly returned. And then, brightening, he asked
gayly: "And we'll be friends always, won't we?"
"Yes," she said at last, slowly and solemnly, and another brief moment
they stood still.
Then the mischief danced in her eyes, and a song bubbled on her lips.
She hopped to the tree.
"Come--eat!" she cried. And they nestled together amid the big black
roots of the oak, laughing and talking while they ate.
"What's over there?" he asked pointing northward.
"Cresswell's big house."
"And yonder to the west?"
"The school."
He started joyfully.
"The school! What school?"
"Old Miss' School."
"Miss Smith's school?"
"Yes." The tone was disdainful.
"Why, that's where I'm going. I was a-feared it was a long way off; I
must have passed it in the night."
"I hate it!" cried the girl, her lips tense.
"But I'll be so near," he explained. "And why do you hate it?"
"Yes--you'll be near," she admitted; "that'll be nice; but--" she
glanced westward, and the fierce look faded. Soft joy crept to her face
again, and she sat once more dreaming.
"Yon way's nicest," she said.
"Why, what's there?"
"The swamp," she said mysteriously.
"And what's beyond the swamp?"