4 Next to the Ground 



briers had sprung up in the two years since 

 it was seeded. Occasionally too there were 

 sassafras clumps, and at the sink-hole, some 

 remnant wild growths — hazels, a hydrangea 

 bush, and a rampant young sycamore rooted in 

 a cleft three feet below the surface. The sink- 

 hole had apparently no reason whatever for 

 being where it was, in the middle of a broad 

 plateau, between two rich swales, but the 

 grass country of Middle Tennessee, in which 

 White Oaks lay, is a limestone region, full 

 of underground streams that play curious 

 pranks with the over-lying earth. 



Venus, the morning star, had showed as a 

 point of white flame in a rosy east when the 

 ploughmen started out. She was pale, the 

 wan ghost of a star, as they filed through the 

 draw-bars. There were three of them, — 

 black Dan, the plantation foreman ; slow Pete, 

 Dan's elder brother; and Joe Baker, the 

 Major's eldest son. Each rode a mule, sit- 

 ting sidewise, and balancing carefully on the 

 backbone, and led two others. Dan had 

 three blacks, matched to a hair, in height, 

 color, weight, and motion. Joe had three 

 creamy-duns, likewise matched. It is cruel, 

 and a waste of strength in fallowing, to hitch 

 a light beast beside a heavy one, or harness 

 together a quick-stepper and a snail. Slow 

 Pete had cross-matches — a gray, a sorrel, and 



