For many years the axe had swung and trees had fallen, but the forest yet descended to the narrow roads, observed itself in winding streams, gloomed upon the sunlit clearings where negroes sang as they tilled the soil.

In the all-surrounding green the plantations showed like intaglios.

From pleasant hillsides, shady groves, and hamlets of offices and quarters, the sedate red-brick, white-porticoed "great houses" looked easily forth upon a world which interested them mightily.
Upon a morning in late April of the year 1804, the early sunshine, overflowing such a plantation, dipped at last into a hollow halfway between the house and the lower gates, and overtook two young creatures playing at make-believe, their drama of the moment being that of the runaway servant.
"Oh, the sun!" wailed Deb.

"We can't pretend it's dark any longer! God has gone and made another day! We'll see you running away,--all of us white folk, and the overseer and Mammy Chloe! If you climb this willow, the dogs will tree you like they did Aunt Dinah's Jim! Lie down and I'll cover you with leaves like the babes in the wood!" Miranda, a slim black limb of Satan in a blue cotton gown, flung herself with promptitude upon the ground.

"Heap de beech leaves an' de oak leaves upon dis heah po' los' niggah.