e dese track wid huffs jus' now, like dey
done ride by? Yo' go git somebody fo' me, or she be right mad, shore."

The elderly guardian of the shed, who was also of the old _regime_,
hobbled away quickly, and backed out a steer that was broken to
harness, and a rickety two-wheeled cart. Their owner had left them
there for some hours, and had crossed the ferry to Beaufort. Old
mistress must be obeyed, and they looked toward her beseechingly where
she was waiting, deprecating her disapproval of this poor apology for
a conveyance. The lady long since had ceased to concern herself with
the outward shapes of things; she accepted this possibility of
carrying out her plans, and they lifted her light figure to the chair,
in the cart's end, while Peter mounted before her with all a
coachman's dignity,--he once had his ambitions of being her
coachman,--and they moved slowly away through the deep sand.

"My Gord A'mighty, look out fo' us now," said Peter over and over.
"Ole mis', she done fo'git, good Lord, she done fo'git how de Good
Marsa up dere done took f'om her ebryt'ing; she 'spect now she find
Syd'n'am all de same like's it was 'fo' de war. She ain't know 'bout
what's been sence day of de gun-shoot on Port Royal and dar-away. O
Lord A'mighty, yo' know how yo' stove her po' head wid dem gun-shoot;
be easy to ole mis'."

But as Peter pleaded in the love and sorrow of his heart, the lady who
sat behind him was unconscious of any cause for grief. Some sweet
vagaries in her own mind were matched to the loveliness of the day.
All her childhood, spent among the rustic scenes of these fertile Sea
Islands, was yielding for her now an undefined pleasantness of
association. The straight-stemmed palmettos stood out with picturesque
clearness against the great level fields, with their straight furrows
running out of sight. Figures of men and women followed the furrow
paths slowly; here were men and horses bending to the ploughshare, and
there women and children sowed with steady hand the rich seed of their
crops. There were touches of color in the head kerchiefs; there were
sounds of songs as the people worked,--not gay songs of the evening,
but some repeated line of a hymn, to steady the patient feet and make
the work go faster,--the unconscious music of the blacks, who sing as
the beetle drones or the cricket chirps slowly under the dry grass. It
had a look of permanence, this cotton-planting. It was a thing to
paint, to relate its