covered with earth and a thick
sod. From here an old road led away from the river through the woods,
and up it Mr. and Mrs. Elmer and Captain Johnson now walked, Mark and
Ruth having run on ahead. The elders had gone but a few steps when they
heard a loud cry from Ruth, and hurried forward fearing that the
children were in trouble. They met Ruth running back towards them,
screaming, "A snake! a snake! a horrid big snake!"

"I've got him!" shouted Mark from behind some bushes, and sure enough
there lay a black snake almost as long as Mark was tall, which he had
just succeeded in killing with a stick.

Mrs. Elmer shuddered at the sight of the snake, though her husband
assured her that it had been perfectly harmless even when alive.

Not far from where the snake had been killed they found a spring of
water bubbling up, as clear as crystal, from a bed of white sand, but
giving forth such a disagreeable odor that the children declared it was
nasty. Mr. Elmer, however, regarded it with great satisfaction, and
told them it was a sulphur spring, stronger than any he had ever seen,
and that they would find it very valuable. They all drank some of the
water out of magnolia-leaf cups; but the children made faces at the
taste, and Mark said it made him feel like a hard-boiled egg.

A path leading from the spring at right angles to the road from the
river took them into a large clearing that had once been a cultivated
field, and on the farther side of this field stood the house. As they
approached it they saw that it was quite large, two stories in height,
with dormer windows in the roof, but that it bore many signs of age and
long neglect. Some of the windows were broken and others boarded up,
while the front door hung disconsolately on one hinge.

The house stood in a grove of grand live-oaks, cedars, and magnolias,
and had evidently been surrounded by a beautiful garden, enclosed by a
neat picket-fence; but now the fence was broken down in many places,
and almost hidden by a dense growth of vines and creepers. In the
garden, rose-bushes, myrtles, oleanders, and camellias grew with a rank
and untrained luxuriance, and all were matted together with vines of
honeysuckle and clematis.

The front porch of the house was so rotten and broken that, after
forcing their way through the wild growth of the garden, the party had
to cross it very carefully in order to enter the open door. The
interior proved to be in a much better condit