nked at him;
An' de jay-bird flew away--
De jay-bird flew away--
An' lef' de lim' a-swingin'--
A-swingin'.

Such was a stanza from one of the songs that Big Black Burl was singing
while he plowed. The words were simple and crude enough, yet would the
melody now and then be varied with an improvised cadence of wild and
peculiar sweetness, such as one might readily fancy had often been heard
in the far-off, golden days of Pan and Silvanus, and the other
cloven-heeled, funny-eared _genii_ of the greenwood.

Though a swell in the ground hid them from his view, Bushie could tell
almost to the minute when Burl and old Cornwallis made their turn at the
farther side of the field, by the singing, which now began to draw
gradually nearer. The morning was breezy, and ever and anon, when a wave
of air came softly flowing over the rustling corn, the song would reach
his ear with an augmented volume and distinctness that made the unseen
singer seem for the moment a hundred yards nearer than he really was. At
length, right leisurely, they crept in sight--Cornwallis first, with
his piebald face; then, as the old horse would dip his head to nibble
at the green blades under his nose, short glimpses of Burl, though for
awhile no further down than his enormous coon-skin cap, made, it is
said, of the biggest raccoon that was ever trapped, treed, or shot in
the Paradise. But presently, observing the old horse prick up his ears
at some object ahead, Burl sighted the woods from between them, and
caught a glimpse of the little figure perched up there on the topmost
rail of the fence, square in front. Whereat, snapping short his melody
in its loudest swell, the plowman, in an altogether different key and
tone, and at the top of his tremendous voice, sent forward his favorite
greeting: "I yi, you dogs!" "I yi, you----" piped back Bushie; but just
as he would have added "dogs," he thought that "coons" would be more
pat; but not acting upon the thought in time for right effect, he
supplied its place with a grin which said more plainly than words could
have said it--than even "dogs" or "coons"--"I knew you would be glad to
see me out here!"

And glad Burl was, for as the plow, with the pleasant smell of fresh
earth and growing herbs floating about it in the air, ran out of the
furrow into the fence corner, he said, looking up with huge complacency
at his little master: "He's come out to de fiel' to see his ol'