confidence of the men and set to keep an eye on Judith.

At the conviction a feeling of terror began to gain ground. She was like
a creature enmeshed in a net weak in its cordage, but many-stranded and
hampering; turn whichever way she would some petty restriction met her.
She moved aimlessly forward, reasonably sure that she was not followed or
observed, since she was going away from rather than toward the Card
place. About a mile from the cabin of old Hannah Updegrove, a weaver of
rag carpet, she suddenly came upon two little creatures sitting at a
tree-foot playing about one of those druidical-looking structures that
the childhood of the man and the childhood of the race alike produce. It
was Little Buck and Beezy come to spend the day with old Hannah who, on
their father's side, was kin of theirs, and making rock play-houses in
the tree-roots to put over the time. Judith ran to the children, gathered
them close, and hugged them to her with whispered endearments in which
some tears mingled.

Then for half an hour followed the schooling of Little Buck for the
message which he was to carry, and which Beezy must be so diverted that
she would not even hear.

Judith plaited grass bracelets for the fat little wrists, fashioned
bonnets of oak leaves, pinning them together with grass stems, and then
sending Beezy far afield to gather flowers for their trimming. On long
journeys the little feet trudged, to where the beautiful, frail, white
meadow lilies rose in clumps from the lush grass of the lowlands. She
fetched cardinal flowers from the mud and shallow water beyond them, or
brought black-eyed Susans from the sun of open spaces. And during these
expeditions Judith's catechism of the boy went on.

"How you goin' to git home, Little Buck?"

"Pappy's a-comin' by to fetch us."

"When?"

"A little befo' sundown?"

"You goin' straight home?"

"Yes, Jude, we' goin' straight home to Granny, why?"

"Never mind, honey. Is Creed there at yo' house?"

A silent nod.

"Is--honey, tell Jude the truth--is it true that he ain't bad hurt? Could
he ride a nag?"

Little Buck looked all around him, drew close to his big sweetheart, and
pulled her down that he might whisper in her ear.

"I know somethin' that Granny and Creed don't know I know, but I mus'n't
tell it to anybody--only thest you. Creed--no, he ain't so awful bad
hurt--he walks everywheres most--he's a-goin' to take the old nag and go
over to Todd's corner to s