girl worth getting up a respectable flirtation with," he
growled. Just then his eye caught a tall, willowy figure hurrying
toward him on the narrow path. He looked with interest at first, and
then burst into a laugh as he said, "Well, I declare, if it isn't
Jennie, the little brown kitchen-maid! Why, I never noticed before
what a trim little body she is. Hello, Jennie! Why, you haven't
kissed me since I came home," he said gaily. The young girl stared at
him in surprise and confusion,--faltered something inarticulate, and
attempted to pass. But a wilful mood had seized the young idler, and
he caught at her arm. Frightened, she slipped by; and half
mischievously he turned and ran after her through the tall pines.

Yonder, toward the sea, at the end of the path, came John slowly, with
his head down. He had turned wearily homeward from the schoolhouse;
then, thinking to shield his mother from the blow, started to meet his
sister as she came from work and break the news of his dismissal to
her. "I'll go away," he said slowly; "I'll go away and find work, and
send for them. I cannot live here longer." And then the fierce,
buried anger surged up into his throat. He waved his arms and hurried
wildly up the path.

The great brown sea lay silent. The air scarce breathed. The dying
day bathed the twisted oaks and mighty pines in black and gold. There
came from the wind no warning, not a whisper from the cloudless sky.
There was only a black man hurrying on with an ache in his heart,
seeing neither sun nor sea, but starting as from a dream at the
frightened cry that woke the pines, to see his dark sister struggling
in the arms of a tall and fair-haired man.

He said not a word, but, seizing a fallen limb, struck him with all the
pent-up hatred of his great black arm, and the body lay white and still
beneath the pines, all bathed in sunshine and in blood. John looked at
it dreamily, then walked back to the house briskly, and said in a soft
voice, "Mammy, I'm going away--I'm going to be free."

She gazed at him dimly and faltered, "No'th, honey, is yo' gwine No'th
agin?"

He looked out where the North Star glistened pale above the waters, and
said, "Yes, mammy, I'm going--North."

Then, without another word, he went out into the narrow lane, up by the
straight pines, to the same winding path, and seated himself on the
great black stump, looking at the blood where the body had lain.
Yonder in the gray past he