Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/109

 near the water streams, singing blithely enough in the dawns but leaving the days silent after the sun swallowed up the dew.

The sky lifted high and far away. The tall pines stood still against it, every needle shining in the sun, and moaning softly with the slightest stir of the hot air. The old oaks shielding the cabins' roofs from the burning sun must have sunk their roots deep in the ground to reach moisture, for their leaves stayed glossy and green, and the long moss hanging from their branches kept its fresh grayness.

The people in the Quarters gave up sleeping in beds and spread quilts on the floors beside open doors and windows. Even if snakes and bugs and spirits walked in the darkness, the risk must be faced to get whatever coolness the night brought.

The river was shrunken, the lakes were dry, the clouds moved overhead white and empty. The water in the rice-fields lay as smooth as ice and as silent as death as the tides kept it rising and falling. The air drifted in heavy-scented with withered cotton blossoms, shriveled figs and grapes falling off the vines to waste.

Mary was unhappy, restless, disturbed, uncertain what to do. She must make up her mind to something for she could not go on any longer