high in a crevice in the logs where the daubing had
fallen out; the moon glittered in its great yellow eyes. A frog was
leaping along the open space about the rude step at Augusta's feet. A
clump of mullein leaves, silvered by the light, spangled by the dew, hid
him presently. What an elusive glistening gauze hung over the valley
far below, where the sense of distance was limited by the sense of
sight!--for it was here only that the night, though so brilliant,
must attest the incomparable lucidity of daylight. She could not even
distinguish, amidst those soft sheens of the moon and the dew, the
Lombardy poplar that grew above the door of old Squire Grove's house
down in the cove; in the daytime it was visible like a tiny finger
pointing upward. How drowsy was the sound of the katydid, now loudening,
now falling, now fainting away! And the tree-toad shrilled in the
dog-wood tree. The frogs, too, by the river in iterative fugue sent
forth a song as suggestive of the margins as the scent of the fern, and
the mint, and the fragrant weeds.

A convulsive start! She did not know that she slept until she was again
awake. The moon had travelled many a mile along the highways of the
skies. It hung over the purple mountains, over the farthest valley. The
cicada had grown dumb. The stars were few and faint. The air was chill.

She started to her feet; her garments were heavy with dew. The fire
beneath the sorghum kettle had died to a coal, flaring or fading as the
faint fluctuations of the wind might will. Near it Pete slumbered where
he too had sat down to rest. And Job--Job had never returned.

*****

[Illustration: The Blacksmith's Shop 345]

He had found it a lightsome enough scene at the blacksmith's shop, where
it was understood that the neighboring politicians collogued at times,
or brethren in the church discussed matters of discipline or more
spiritual affairs. In which of these interests a certain corpulent jug
was most active it would be difficult perhaps to accurately judge. The
great barn-like doors were flung wide open, and there was a group of men
half within the shelter and half without; the shoeing-stool, a broken
plough, an empty keg, a log, and a rickety chair sufficed to seat the
company. The moonlight falling into the door showed the great slouching,
darkling figures, the anvil, the fire of the forge (a dim ashy coal),
and the shadowy hood merging indistinguishably into the deep duskiness
of the interior.