A Thousand- Mile Walk 



me with so good an excuse for doing what I 

 knew my mother would censure; for she made 

 me promise I would not lie out of doors if I 

 could possibly avoid it. The sun was set ere 

 I was past the negroes huts and rice fields, 

 and I arrived near the graves in the silent hour 

 of the gloaming. 



I was very thirsty after walking so long in 

 the muggy heat, a distance of three or four 

 miles from the city, to get to this graveyard. 

 A dull, sluggish, coffee-colored stream flows 

 under the road just outside the graveyard gar 

 den park, from which I managed to get a drink 

 after breaking a way down to the water through 

 a dense fringe of bushes, daring the snakes and 

 alligators in the dark. Thus refreshed I entered 

 the weird and beautiful abode of the dead. 



All the avenue where I walked was in 

 shadow, but an exposed tombstone frequently 

 shone out in startling whiteness on either hand, 

 and thickets of sparkleberry bushes gleamed 

 like heaps of crystals. Not a breath of air moved 

 the gray moss, and the great black arms of the 

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