THE OLD SUGAR MILL. 119 



So I sat dreaming, when suddenly there 

 was a stir in the grass at my feet. A snake 

 was coming straight toward me. Only the 

 evening before a cracker had filled my ears 

 with stories of " rattlers " and " moccasins." 

 He seemed to have seen them everywhere, 

 and to have killed them as one kills mosqui- 

 toes. I looked a second time at the moving 

 thing in the grass. It was clothed in inno- 

 cent black ; but, being a son of Adam, I 

 rose with involuntary politeness to let it 

 pass. An instant more, and it slipped into 

 the masonry at my side, and I sat down 

 again. It had been out taking the sun, and 

 had come back to its hole in the wall. How 

 like the story of my own day, of my 

 whole winter vacation ! Nay, if we choose 

 to view it so, how like the story of human 

 life itself ! 



As I started homeward, leaving the mill 

 and the cabin behind me, some cattle were 

 feeding in the grassy road. At sight of my 

 umbrella (there are few places where a 

 sunshade is more welcome than in a Flor- 

 ida pine-wood) they scampered away into 

 the scrub. Poor, wild-eyed, hungry-looking 

 things ! I thought of Pharaoh's lean kine. 



