Still farther, gentle tinklings hinted of peacefully-browsing sheep.
Inside the house, bunches of sweet-smelling medicinal herbs, hanging agains the walls to dry, made the air heavy with their odors.

Aunt Debby was at work near the bright zone of sun-rays, spinning yarn with a "big wheel." She held in one hand a long slender roll of carded wool, and in the other a short stick, with which she turned the wheel.

Setting it to whirling with a long sweep of the stick against a spoke, she would walk backward while the roll was twisted out into a long, thin thread, and then walk forward as they yarn was wound upon the spindle.

When she walked backward, the spindle hummed sharply; when she came forward it droned.

There was a stately rhythm in both, to which her footsteps and graceful sway of body kept time, and all blended harmoniously with the camp-meeting melody she was softly singing: "Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee; Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shalt be.
Perish every fond ambition-- All I've sought, or hoped, or known; Yet how rich is my condition-- God and Heaven still my own." A world of memories of a joyous past, unflecked by a single one of the miseries of the present, crowded in upon Harry on the wings of this well-remembered tune.