Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/327

Rh scamperin' through a garret very swift. Parts of it was sweet, though, and reminded me of a sugar squirrel turnin' the wheel of a candy cage. 'Now, I says to my neighbor, he's showin' off. He thinks he's a-doin' of it; but he ain't got no idee, no plan of nuthin'. If he'd play me up a tune of some kind or other, I’d—"

"But my neighbor says, 'Heish!' very impatient.

"I was just about to git up and go home, bein' tired of that foolishness, when I heard a little bird wakin' up away off in the woods, and callin' sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up and I see that Ruben was beginnin' to take interest in his business, and I set down agin. It was the peep of day. The light come faint from the east, the breeze blowed gentle and fresh, some more birds waked up in the orchard, then some more in the trees near the house, and all begun singin' together. People begun to stir, and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms; a leetle more and it techt the roses on the bushes, and the next thing it was broad day; the sun fairly blazed; the birds sang like they'd split their little throats; all the leaves was moving and flashin' diamonds of dew, and the whole wide world was bright and happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a good break fast in every house in the land, and not a sick child or woman anywhere. It was a fine mornin'.

"And I says to my neighbor, 'That's music, that is.'

"But he glared at me like he'd like to cut my throat.

"Presently the wind turned; it begun to thicken up, and a kind of gray mist come over things; I got low-spirited d'rectlv. Then a silver rain begun to fall; I could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up like long pearl earrings; and the rest rolled away like round rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into long strands and necklaces, and then they melted into thin silver streams