d a hog to be
barbecued. Everything was ready by eight o'clock in the morning. Emma
and two other girl helpers were on the tip-toe of expectancy. Nine
o'clock came and no one with it. Ten o'clock came, and eleven. High
noon found Zora peering down the highway under her shading hand, but no
soul in sight. She tried to think it out: what could have happened? Her
people were slow, tardy, but they would not thus forget her and
disappoint her without some great cause. She sent the girls home at dusk
and then seated herself miserably under the great oak; then at last one
half-grown boy hurried by.

"I wanted to come, Miss Zora, but I was afeared. Preacher Jones has been
talking everywhere against you. He says that your mother was a voodoo
woman and that you don't believe in God, and the deacons voted that the
members mustn't help you."

"And do the people believe that?" she asked in consternation.

"They just don't know what to say. They don't 'zactly believe it, but
they has to 'low that you didn't say much 'bout religion when you
talked. You ain't been near Big Meetin'--and--and--you ain't saved." He
hurried on.

Zora leaned her head back wearily, watching the laced black branches
where the star-light flickered through--as coldly still and immovable as
she had watched them from those gnarled roots all her life--and she
murmured bitterly the world-old question of despair: "What's the use?"
It seemed to her that every breeze and branch was instinct with
sympathy, and murmuring, "What's the use?" She wondered vaguely why, and
as she wondered, she knew.

For yonder where the black earth of the swamp heaved in a formless mound
she felt the black arms of Elspeth rising from the sod--gigantic,
mighty. They stole toward her with stealthy hands and claw-like talons.
They clutched at her skirts. She froze and could not move. Down, down
she slipped toward the black slime of the swamp, and the air about was
horror--down, down, till the chilly waters stung her knees; and then
with one grip she seized the oak, while the great hand of Elspeth
twisted and tore her soul. Faint, afar, nearer and nearer and ever
mightier, rose a song of mystic melody. She heard its human voice and
sought to cry aloud. She strove again and again with that gripping,
twisting pain--that awful hand--until the shriek came and she awoke.

She lay panting and sweating across the bent and broken roots of the
oak. The hand of Elspeth was gone but the song was s