plow in the furrow while he followed till
sunset the flight of successive birds through the adjacent pastures,
imitating as he went the fresh mid-air cry, whistling in so vibrant a
bird-voice, so signally clear and dulcet, yet so keen despite its
sweetness, that his brothers at the plow-handles sought in vain to
distinguish between the calls of the earthling and the winged voyager of
the empyreal air. None of them had ever heard of ventriloquism, so
limited had been their education and experience, so sequestered was
their home amidst the wilderness of the mountains. Only very gradually
to Brent himself came the consciousness of his unique gift, as from
imitation he progressed to causing a silent bird to seem to sing. The
strangeness of the experience frightened him at first, but with each
experiment he had grown more confident, more skilled, until at length he
found that he could throw a singularly articulate voice into the jaws of
the old plow-horse, while his brothers, accustomed to his queer vocal
tricks, were convulsed with laughter at the bizarre quadrupedal views of
life thus elicited. This development of proficiency, however, was
recent, and until the incident at the bran dance it had not been
exercised beyond the limits of their secluded home. It had revealed new
possibilities to the young ventriloquist and he looked at once agitated,
excited, and triumphant when late that afternoon he appeared suddenly at
the rail fence about the door-yard of Valeria Clee's home on one of the
spurs of Chilhowee Mountain.

It was no such home as his--lacking all the evidence of rude comfort and
coarse plenty that reigned there--and in its tumble-down disrepair it
had an aspect of dispirited helplessness. Here Valeria, an orphan from
her infancy, dwelt with her father's parents, who always of small means
had become yearly a more precarious support. The ancient grandmother was
sunken in many infirmities, and the household tasks had all fallen to
the lot of Valeria. Latterly a stroke of paralysis had given old man
Clee an awful annotation on the chapter of age and poverty upon which he
was entering, and his little farm was fast growing up in brambles.

"But 't ain't no differ, gran'dad," Valeria often sought to reassure
him. "_I'll_ work some way out."

And when he would irritably flout the possibility that she could do
aught to materially avert disaster she was wont to protest: "You jes'
watch _me_. _I'll_ find out some way. I b