sponse Hugh paid no visible attention. The
eastern sky had become such a picture that down forward at the break of
the deck John Courteney rose eagerly from his chair and looked back and
up to be sure that his son was one of its spectators. Yes, Hugh was just
casting a like glance to him and now turned to invite the notice of his
grandfather. The thunder-clouds had so encompassed the sun that its rays
burst through them almost exclusively in one wide crater, crimsoning,
bronzing, and gilding their vaporous and ever-changing walls. Thence
they spread earthward, heavenward, leaving remoter masses to writhe
darkly on each other and themselves, in and out, in and in, cloaking
this hill in blue shadow, bathing that one in green light, while from a
watery fastness somewhere hid in the depth of the forested swamp under
the hills, some long-lost bend of the Mississippi or cut-off of the
Yazoo, rose into the flood of beams an innumerable immaculate swarm of
giant cranes. Half were white as silver, half were black as jet, and
from moment to moment each jet magically turned to silver, each silver
to jet, as on slowly pulsing wings they wove a labyrinthian way through
their own multitude with never a clash of pinion on pinion, up, down,
athwart and around, up, down, and around again, now raven black across
the sun and now silver and snow against the cloud.

An awed voice broke the stillness and old Joy stood a modest step back
from Hugh's side with rapt gaze on hill and sky.

XXXIII

TWINS AND TEXAS TENDER

"Sign f'om de Lawd!" droned the old woman. "It's de souls o' de saints
in de tribilatioms o' de worl'!"

But explanation was poor tribute to such beauty. Hugh glanced away to
his father, then around to the commodore, up to Watson, and back again
upon the spectacle. In a tone of remote allusion the grandfather spoke:
"One wants a choice partnership for a sight like that."

Hugh cast back a sudden frown but it softened promptly to a smile which
old Joy thought wonderfully sweet.

"Late sleepers," persisted the commodore, "know what they gain but not
what they lose."

"Naw yit," audibly soliloquized the nurse, "what dey makes de early
riseh lose." She added a soft high-treble "humph!" and gave herself a
smile at least as sweet as Hugh's, which he repeated to her as he said:

"Good morning, auntie."

She courtesied. "Mawnin', suh." They need not have been more cordial had
they just signed a great treaty.