mily--had said:

"I'd choose to be a saint, like the one in the glass winder in the
church, with light shinin' from my head. I'd walk all night up and down
the 'road bend,' so travellers could see the way and wagons wouldn't get
stallded."

The children had shuddered and felt half afraid at this.

"But you'd git stallded yo'se'f in dat black mud--"

"An' de runaways in de canebrake 'd ketch yer--"

"An' de paterole'd shoot yer--"

"An' eve'body'd think you was a walkin' sperit, an' run away f'om yer."

So the protests had come in, though the gleaming eyes of the little
negroes had shown their delight in the fantastic idea.

"But I'd walk on a cloud, like the saint in the picture," Idyl had
insisted. "And my feet wouldn't touch the mud, and when the runaways
looked into my face, they'd try to be good and go back to their masters.
Nobody would hurt me. Tired horses would be glad to see my light, and
everybody would love me."

So, first laughingly, and then as a matter of habit, she had come to be
known as "Saint Idyl."

As she stands quite still, with face uplifted, out on the levee this
evening, one is reminded in looking at her of the "Maid of Domremi"
listening to the voices.

Idyl was in truth listening to voices--voices new, strange, and
solemn--voices of heavy, distant cannon.

It was the 23d of April, 1862. A few miles below Bijou Plantation
Farragut's fleet was storming the blockade at Fort Jackson. All along
the lower Mississippi it was a time of dread and terror.

The negroes, for the most part awed and terror-stricken, muttered
prayers as they went about, and all night long sang mournfully and
shouted and prayed in the churches or in groups in their cabins, or even
in the road.

The war had come at last. Its glare was upon the sky at night, and all
day long reiterated its persistent staccato menace:

"Boom-m-m! Gloom-m-m! Tomb-b-b! Doom-m-m!"

The air had never seemed to lose the vibratory tremor, "M-m-m!" since
the first gun, nearly six days ago.

It was as if the lips of the land were trembling. And the trembling lips
of the black mothers, as they pressed their babes to their bosoms,
echoed the wordless terror.

Death was in the air. Had they doubted it? In a field near by a shell
had fallen, burying itself in the earth, and, exploding, had sent two
men into the air, killing one and returning the other unhurt.

Now the survivor, saved as by a miracle, was preaching "The Wrath to
Come.