aspect, for the cabins, standing five yards apart, faced each other in two
long lines. In each was a glowing fire, on which logs and pine-knots and
cypress-splints were laid with unsparing hand, for there was no limit to
the fuel. These fires furnished the lights: candles and lamps were unknown
at "the quarter."

Of course the windowless cabins, with these roaring fires, were stifling
in September; so the negroes sat in the doorways chatting and singing while
the bacon was frying and the corn dough roasting in the ashes or the
hoecake baking on the griddle. An occasional woman patched or washed some
garment by the firelight, while others brought water in piggins from the
spring at the foot of the hill on whose brow "the quarter" was located.

As Alston sat outside his door on a block, eating his supper by the light
of the high-mounting flames of his cabin-fire, Little Lizay came out and
sat on her doorsill. Her cabin stood opposite his. He recognized her, and
when he had finished his supper he went over to her.

"I didn't want ter strike yer, Lizay," he said. "Do you feel haud agin me
fer it?"

"No," Lizay answered: "he made yer do it. Yer couldn't he'p it. I reckon
yer'll have ter whip me agin ter-morrer night. I mos' knows my baskit won't
weigh no two hunderd an' fawty-seven poun's. 'Tain't fa'r ter 'spec' that
much from me: it's a heap more'n tother gals gits, an' mos' all uv um is
heap bigger'n me. I's small pertatoes." She laughed a little at her jest.

"Yer's some punkins," said Alston, returning the joke. "I'd give a heap ef
I could pick cotton like yer."

"Yer's improved a heap," said Little Lizay. "Ef yer keeps on improvin',
mayby yer'll git so yer kin he'p me arter 'while."

"Mayby so," Alston answered.

"But yer wouldn't he'p me, I reckon. Reckon yer'd he'p Edny Ann: yer likes
her better'n me."

"No, I don't."

"Reckon yer likes somebody in Virginny more'n yer likes anybody on this
plantation."

"I's better 'quainted back thar'," said Alston apologetically.

"But thar' ain't no use hankerin' arter them yer's lef 'hin' yer: reckon
yer won't never see um no mo'. Heap better git sati'fied yere. It's a long
way back thar', ain't it?"

"A mighty long way," said Alston; and then he was silent, his thoughts
going back and back over the long way.

Lizay recalled him: "Was yer sorry yer had ter whip me?"

"I was mighty sorry, Little Lizay," he replied with a strong tone of
tenderness that made her he