ke to tell Juliet Burwell that he didn't want to keep a
clean heart, and to call God names. No, he would not become a minister
and preach the Gospel. He would be a thief instead and break into
hen-houses and steal chickens. If his father planted watermelons he
would steal them from the vines as soon as they were ripe. Perhaps
Eugenia would help him. At any rate he would go halves with her if she
would be his partner in wickedness. He had just as soon go to hell,
after all--if it were not for Thomas Jefferson.

He leaned his head on his hands and looked through the narrow window to
where the peanut fields lay in blackness. From the stable came the faint
neigh of the old mare, and he remembered suddenly that he had forgotten
to put straw in her stall and to loosen her halter that she might lie
down. He rose and stole softly downstairs and out of the house.

IX

One evening in late autumn Nicholas went into Delphy's cabin after
supper and found Eugenia seated upon the hearth, facing Uncle Ish and
Aunt Verbeny. Between them Delphy's son-in-law, Moses, was helping
Bernard mend a broken hare trap, while Delphy, herself, was crooning a
lullaby to one of her grandchildren as she carded the wool which she had
taken from a quilt of faded patchwork. On the stones of the great
fireplace the red flames from lightwood splits leaped over a smouldering
hickory log, filling the cabin with the penetrating odour of burning,
resinous pine. From the wall above the hearth a dozen roasting apples
were suspended by hemp strings, and as the heat penetrated the russet
coats the apples circled against the yawning chimney like small globes
revolving about a sun.

Eugenia was sitting silently in a low, split-bottomed chair, her hands
folded in her lap and her animated eyes on the dark faces across from
her, over whose wrinkled surfaces the dancing firelight chased in ruddy
lights and shadows.

Uncle Ish had stretched his feet out upon the stones, and the mud
adhering to his rough, homemade boots was fast drying before the blaze
and settling in coarse gray dust upon the hearth. His gnarled old palms
lay upward on his knees, and his grizzled head was bowed upon his chest.
At intervals he muttered softly to himself, but his words were
inaudible--suggested by some far-off and disconnected vision. Aunt
Verbeny was nodding in her chair, arousing herself from time to time to
give a sharp glance into the face of Uncle Ish.

"Huccome dey let