way farther into the network of vines, the rank leaves and
starry blossoms bobbing about her feet. The fruit and flowers of Cold
Comfort did something toward filling the place left void in her heart by
the lack of the children that had never come. She stood still and looked
over the wide patch as if she had made every melon there, and meant to
have the full credit for her work.

"Do with them, monkey! Why they are as good as a silver mine--the
beauties! Every full-grown one stands for a quarter of a dollar. We send
six wagon-loads to Richmond every week, and people come for them from
every direction--as far as across the river in Goochland; and we give
dozens away to our neighbors, and the negroes come at night to steal
them--Oh! _oh!!_ OH!!!"

She gathered her skirts tightly and high above her ankles with both
hands, letting the green parasol tumble, head foremost, to the ground,
and screeched as if she had trod upon a yellow-jacket's nest. She was
going to have Nerves again, with no hartshorn, or burnt feathers, or
turkey-tail fan, or Cousin 'Ratio near. I started to run to the house
for help, but she grabbed my frock frantically.

"If you budge one inch you are a dead child!" she wheezed, her pale eyes
bulging from the sockets. "Cap'n Gates and the overseer came out here
last night and just sowed all this patch with side-blades!"
(Scythe-blades.) "Edges up! Sharp as razors and thick as thieves!
Hundreds of them! To keep the negroes from stealing any more of them! I
heard Cap'n Gates tell them he was going to do it, and the overseer told
them this morning that they _had_ done it. And I haven't an atom of an
idea where a solitary one of the murderous things is! We are as good as
dead if we try to get out. We might tread upon one, at the first step!
How could I forget it? Oh, how could I?"

I felt the blood drain away from my face, and I trembled as violently as
she. Then a thought came to me, and I got it out between chattering
teeth.

"We didn't tread on any of them coming into the patch."

"That was sheer providence, honey. We _might_ have been cut in two
before we had gone ten yards."

"But, Cousin Nancy!" catching at her hands as she began to wring them
again, and to sob and squeal as she had done in the morning. "Listen! I
am sure I could go out by the very same path! Let's try! We can't stay
here always."

"_Path!_ There isn't a sign of a path! Look!"

She pointed a bony finger in the direction we had