little out-building was now firmly roofed with new, green
boards; its square windows, destitute of sash or glass, possessed new
wooden shutters hung by strips of deer's hide; new steps led up to its
two rooms, elevated four feet above the ground. But for a door it had
only a red cotton curtain, now drawn forward and thrown carelessly over
a peg on the outside wall, a spot of vivid color on its white.
Underneath the windows hung flimsy strips of bark covered with
brightly-hued flowers.

"They won't live," said Mark Deal.

"Oh, I shall put in fresh ones every day or two," answered his brother.
It was he who had wanted the red curtain.

As he basked, motionless, in the sunshine, it could be noted that this
brother was a slender youth, with long, pale-yellow hair--hair fine,
thin, and dry, the kind that crackles if the comb is passed rapidly
through it. His face in sleep was pale and wizened, with deep purple
shadows under the closed eyes; his long hands were stretched out on the
white, hot sand in the blaze of the sunshine, which, however, could not
alter their look of blue-white cold. The sunken chest and blanched
temples told of illness; but, if cure were possible, it would be gained
from this soft, balmy, fragrant air, now soothing his sore lungs. He
slept on in peace; and an old green chameleon came down from the tree,
climbed up on the sleeve of his brown sack-coat, occupied himself for a
moment in changing his own miniature hide to match the cloth, swelled
out his scarlet throat, caught a fly or two, and then, pleasantly
established, went to sleep also in company. Butterflies, in troops of
twenty or thirty, danced in the golden air; there was no sound.
Everything was hot and soft and brightly colored. Winter? Who knew of
winter here? Labor? What was labor? This was the land and the sky and
the air of never-ending rest.

Yet one man was working there, and working hard, namely, Mark Deal. His
little central plaza, embracing perhaps an acre, was surrounded when he
first arrived by a wall of green, twenty feet high. The sweet
orange-trees, crape-myrtles, oleanders, guavas, and limes planted by the
Spaniards had been, during the fifty years, conquered and partially
enslaved by a wilder growth--andromedas, dahoons, bayberries, and the
old field loblollies, the whole bound together by the tangled vines of
the jessamine and armed smilax, with bear-grass and the dwarf palmetto
below. Climbing the central live-oak, Deal ha