got
some further acquaintance with the swift, learning among other things
that it had no appetite for the pure in heart.

'Why not?' I enquired.

'Well,' said Uncle Eb, 'it's like this: the meaner the boy, the sweeter
the meat.'

He sang an old song as he sat by the fire, with a whistled interlude
between lines, and the swing of it, even now, carries me back to that
far day in the fields. I lay with my head in his lap while he was
singing.

Years after, when I could have carried him on my back' he wrote down
for me the words of the old song. Here they are, about as he sang them,
although there are evidences of repair, in certain lines, to supply the
loss of phrases that had dropped out of his memory:

I was goin' to Salem one bright summer day,
I met a young maiden a goin' my way;
O, my fallow, faddeling fallow, faddel away.

An' many a time I had seen her before,
But I never dare tell 'er the love thet I bore.
O, my fallow, etc.

'Oh, where are you goin' my purty fair maid?'
'O, sir, I am goin' t' Salem,' she said.
O, my fallow, etc.

'O, why are ye goin' so far in a day?
Fer warm is the weather and long is the way.'
O, my fallow, etc.

'O, sir I've forgorten, I hev, I declare,
But it's nothin' to eat an' its nothin' to wear.'
O, my fallow, etc.

'Oho! then I hev it, ye purty young miss!
I'll bet it is only three words an' a kiss.'
O, my fallow, etc.

'Young woman, young woman, O how will it dew
If I go see yer lover 'n bring 'em t' you?'
O, my fallow, etc.

''S a very long journey,' says she, 'I am told,
An' before ye got back, they would surely be cold.'
O, my fallow, etc.

'I hev 'em right with me, I vum an' I vow,
An' if you don't object I'll deliver 'em now.'
O, my fallow, etc.

She laid her fair head all on to my breast,
An' ye wouldn't know more if I tol' ye the rest
O, my fallow, etc.

I went asleep after awhile in spite of all, right in the middle of a
story. The droning voice of Uncle Eb and the feel of his hand upon my
forehead called me back, blinking, once or twice, but not for long. The
fire was gone down to a few embers when Uncle Eb woke me and the grotto
was lit only by a sprinkle of moonlight from above.

'Mos' twelve o'clock,' he whispered. 'Better be off.'

The basket was on his back and he was all ready. I followed him through
the long aisle of corn, clinging to the tall of his coat. The golden
lantern of th