fant,
saying, in a voice that was perfectly steady, though a nice observer
would have discovered that it was kinder than usual--

"Eester, we have now done all that man and woman can do. We raised the
boy, and made him such as few others were like, on the frontiers of
America; and we have given him a grave. Let us go our way."

The woman turned her eyes slowly from the fresh earth, and laying her
hands on the shoulders of her husband, stood, looking him anxiously in
the eyes.

"Ishmael! Ishmael!" she said, "you parted from the boy in your wrath!"

"May the Lord pardon his sins freely as I have forgiven his worst
misdeeds!" calmly returned the squatter: "woman, go you back to the rock
and read your Bible; a chapter in that book always does you good. You
can read, Eester; which is a privilege I never did enjoy."

"Yes, yes," muttered the woman, yielding to his strength, and suffering
herself to be led, though with strong reluctance from the spot. "I can
read; and how have I used the knowledge! But he, Ishmael, he has not the
sin of wasted l'arning to answer for. We have spared him that, at least!
whether it be in mercy, or in cruelty, I know not."

Her husband made no reply, but continued steadily to lead her in the
direction of their temporary abode. When they reached the summit of
the swell of land, which they knew was the last spot from which the
situation of the grave of Asa could be seen, they all turned, as by
common concurrence, to take a farewell view of the place. The little
mound itself was not visible; but it was frightfully indicated by the
flock of screaming birds which hovered above. In the opposite direction
a low, blue hillock, in the skirts of the horizon, pointed out the place
where Esther had left the rest of her young, and served as an attraction
to draw her reluctant steps from the last abode of her eldest born.
Nature quickened in the bosom of the mother at the sight; and she
finally yielded the rights of the dead, to the more urgent claims of the
living.

The foregoing occurrences had struck a spark from the stern tempers of a
set of beings so singularly moulded in the habits of their uncultivated
lives, which served to keep alive among them the dying embers of family
affection. United to their parents by ties no stronger than those which
use had created, there had been great danger, as Ishmael had foreseen,
that the overloaded hive would swarm, and leave him saddled with the
difficulties of