was spring----" She did not finish
her sentence, for a wave of wind brought the lagging storm on its
breast; a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder set it
free and then the deluge descended. A wall, seemingly tangible,
descended from the clouds to the earth--everything was blotted out.

"Good Lord-a'mighty!" Ivy dashed in from the kitchen, a grayness
showing through the black of her skin; "I mus' save dem cows. I jes'
mus'--God help me!" She ran through the room to the front hall,
pulling her skirt over her head as she ran.

"Ivy, I forbid you leaving the house!"

The black woman paused, for even in that moment of excitement tradition
held her--the servant was stopped by the mistress' voice, but too long
had Ivy stood for higher things to renounce them now. She had stood
between her loved ones and starvation; she had always kept the worst
from them and she must continue to do so.

"Miss Ann, honey," she said in her soft, old drawl, "dem cattle down by
de Branch is all that stan's 'twixt us-all and we-all becoming white
trash! I jis' got-ter go, chile!"

Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They
watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking;
with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at
the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little
foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for
breath and then--there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood
was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea
of troubled water.

Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a
frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia.

"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?"

Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With
large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once
the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her
comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh
rang out.

"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child;
"oh! I'm so afraid!"

But again and again the laugh sounded.

"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!"

Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know,
but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared
for and guarded--one to defend.

"Come," whispered Cyn