those simmering
rice-fields?" He grew into the habit of pausing for a moment by the side
of this grave every morning and evening. "Blank Rodman. It might easily
have been John. And then, where should _I_ be?"

But Blank Rodman remained silent, and the keeper, after pulling up a
weed or two and trimming the grass over his relative, went off to his
duties again. "I am convinced that Blank is a relative," he said to
himself; "distant, perhaps, but still a kinsman."

One April day the heat was almost insupportable; but the sun's rays were
not those brazen beams that sometimes in Northern cities burn the air
and scorch the pavements to a white heat; rather were they soft and
still; the moist earth exhaled her richness, not a leaf stirred, and the
whole level country seemed sitting in a hot vapor-bath. In the early
dawn the keeper had performed his outdoor tasks, but all day he remained
almost without stirring in his chair between two windows, striving to
exist. At high noon out came a little black bringing his supplies from
the town, whistling and shuffling along, gay as a lark. The keeper
watched him coming slowly down the white road, loitering by the way in
the hot blaze, stopping to turn a somersault or two, to dangle over a
bridge rail, to execute various impromptu capers all by himself. He
reached the gate at last, entered, and, having come all the way up the
path in a hornpipe step, he set down his basket at the door to indulge
in one long and final double-shuffle before knocking. "Stop that!" said
the keeper through the closed blinds. The little darkey darted back; but
as nothing further came out of the window--a boot, for instance, or some
other stray missile--he took courage, showed his ivories, and drew near
again. "Do you suppose I am going to have you stirring up the heat in
that way?" demanded the keeper.

The little black grinned, but made no reply, unless smoothing the hot
white sand with his black toes could be construed as such; he now
removed his rimless hat and made a bow.

"Is it, or is it not warm?" asked the keeper, as a naturalist might
inquire of a salamander, not referring to his own so much as to the
salamander's ideas on the subject.

"Dunno, mars'," replied the little black.

"How do _you_ feel?"

"'Spects I feel all right, mars'."

The keeper gave up the investigation, and presented to the salamander a
nickel cent. "I suppose there is no such thing as a cool spring in all
this melting