smoothed out the worn print dress, which was not long enough to hide her
slim bare ankles, and went out, taking her knitting with her.

Upon the hill along the edges of the pasture where the woods cast a
luminous shadow she found a comfortable seat in the sun-dried grasses,
and here she curled up, examining the knitting in her hands, eyes lifted
every moment to steal a glance around the sunlit solitude.

An hour crept by, marked by the sun in mounting splendor; the sweet
scent of drying grass and fern filled her lungs; the birds' choral
thrilled her with the loveliness of life. A little Southern song
trembled on her lips, and her hushed voice murmuring was soft as the
wild bees' humming:

"Ah, who could couple thought of war and crime
With such a blessed time?
Who, in the west wind's aromatic breath,
Could hear the call of Death?"

The gentle Southern poet's flowing rhythm was echoed by the distant
stream:

" ... A fragrant breeze comes floating by,
And brings--you know not why--
A feeling as when eager crowds await
Before a palace gate
Some wondrous pageant----"

She lifted her eyes, fixing them upon the willow thicket below, where
the green tops swayed as though furrowed by a sudden wind; and watching
calmly, her lips whispered on, following the quaint rhythm:

"And yet no sooner shall the Spring awake
The voice of wood and brake
Than she shall rouse--for all her tranquil charms--
A million men to arms."

The willow tops were tossing violently. She watched them, murmuring:

"Oh! standing on this desecrated mold,
Methinks that I behold,
Lifting her bloody daisies up to God,
Spring--kneeling on the sod,
And calling with the voice of all her rills
Upon the ancient hills
To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves
Who turn her meads to graves."

Her whisper ceased; she sat, lips parted, eyes fastened on the willows.
Suddenly a horseman broke through the thicket, then another, another,
carbines slung, sabres jingling, rider following rider at a canter,
sitting their horses superbly--the graceful, reckless, matchless cavalry
under whose glittering gray curtain the most magnificent army that the
South ever saw was moving straight into the heart of the Union.

Fascinated, she watched an officer dismount, advance to the house, enter
the open doorway, and disappear. Minute after minute passed; the
troopers quietly sat their