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Dichter bist!ach, mein Leben ist uebermässig reich geworden! Wer hätte sich doch einbilden können dass ich einen Mann zu einem so wunderschönen Gedicht hätte begeistern können!

W. Liebste! Es ist nur eine Kleinigkeit. A. Nein, nein, es ist ein echtes Wunder! Sage es noch einmal — ich flehe Dich an.

W. Du bist wie eine Blume!

So schön und hold und rein -
Ich schau Dich an, und Wehmuth
Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.
Mir ist als ob ich die Hände

Aufs Haupt Dir legen sollt,
Betend dass Gott Dich erhalte,

So rein und schön und hold.

A. Ach, es ist himmlisch - einfach himmlisch! (Kiss.) Schreibt auch George Gedichte?

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W. (Aside.) Smouches 'em, same as I do. It was a noble good idea to play that little thing on her. George would n't ever think of that - somehow he never had any invention. A. (Arranging chairs.) Jetzt will ich bei Dir sitzen bleiben, und Du

W. (They sit.) Ja,- und ich

A. Du wirst mir die alte Geschichte die immer neu bleibt, noch wieder erzählen.

W. Zum Beispiel, dass ich Dich liebe!
A. Wieder!

W. Ich sie kommen!

Enter George and Margaret.

A. Das macht nichts. Fortan!

(George unties M.'s bonnet. She re-ties his cravat-interspersings of love-pats, etc., and dumb-show of love-quarrelings.)

W. Ich liebe Dich.

A. Ach! Noch einmal!

W. Ich habe Dich von Herzen lieb.
A. Ach! Abermals!

W. Bist Du denn noch nicht satt? A. Nein! (The other couple sit down, and Margaret begins a re-tying of the cravat. Enter the Wirthin and Stephenson, he imposing silence with a sign.) Mich hungert sehr, ich verhungre!

W. Oh, Du armes Kind! (Lays her head on his shoulder. Dumb-show between Stephenson and Wirthin.) Und hungert es nicht mich? Du hast mir nicht einmal gesagt

A. Dass ich Dich liebe? Mein Eigener! (Frau Wirthin threatens to faint-is supported by Stephenson.) Höre mich nur an: Ich liebe Dich, ich liebe Dich

Enter Gretchen.

GR. (Tears her hair.) Oh, dass ich in der Hölle wäre!

M. Ich liebe Dich, ich liebe Dich! Ah, ich

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The young men hesitate a moment, then they add their embrace, flinging themselves on Stephenson's neck, along with the girls.

THE YOUNG MEN. Why, father!

S. (Struggling.) Oh come, this is too thin! - too quick, I mean. Let go, you rascals! GEO. We'll never let go till you put us on the family list.

M. Right! hold to him!

A. Cling to him, Will!

Gretchen rushes in and joins the general embrace, but is snatched away by the Wirthin, crushed up against the wall and threatened with destruction.

S. (Suffocating.) All right, all right- have it your own way, you quartette of swindlers! W. He's a darling! Three cheers for papa!

EVERYBODY. (Except Stephenson, who bows with hand on heart.) Hip-hip-hip; hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

GR. Der Tiger -- ah-h-h!
WIRTHIN. Sei ruhig, you hussy!

S. Well, I 've lost a couple of precious daughters, but I 've gained a couple of precious scamps to fill up the gap with; so it's all right. I 'm satisfied, and everybody 's forgiven (With mock threats at Gretchen.)

W. Oh, wir werden für Dich sorgen - du herrliches Gretchen!

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"DE VALLEY AN' DE SHADDER."

By the Author of "The Two Runaways," "Sister Todhunter's Heart," " Elder Brown's Backslide," etc.

LOG hut with a stack chimney, at the foot of a long, low hill where the path that winds around it disappears under a great spreading black-gum; another log hut with a stack chimney, over by a belt of pine woods; and another of like build beyond, where a group of water-oaks marks a bend in the swamp; and others still, right and left in the distance, until the number runs up into the dozens, this is Black Ankle. But not all of it. Yonder are a shed and a corn-crib, and a leaning stack of fodder, and a blue-stem collard patch, and snake fences, and vehicles that have stood in the weather until sunstruck; a forlorn mule; a cow that all her life has evidently practiced the precept, "It is better to give than to receive "; a stray hen with her little family under a gorgeous sunflower, this is Black Ankle.

But hold! There are little negroes in single garments that reach to their knees only, and the ten-year-old girl bearing in her arms the infant. There are the clothes fluttering on the knotted lines propped up by fork saplings. There are black women, with tucked-up dresses, scrubbing over the wash-tub, and in the air the marvelously mellow plantation hymn, and on the ground the shadow of the circling hawk, and the grasshopper balancing himself in mid air, and the dipping mocking-bird on the hawbush. Ah, now indeed is this Black Ankle!

The sun had gone down, and the shadows were creeping out of the swamp, veiling Black Ankle. All the poverty sign-boards were buried in the gloom, and where the cabins stood fiery eyes twinkled through the night. But under the great black-gum, where the spring gushed, a pine-knot fire blazed merrily, piling up the shadows and painting in wavering light the cabin front. The little porch, over which ran the morning-glory and the cypress-vine, stood forth as though projected by the brush of a mighty artist. From every direction, by every path, there came dusky figures, the simple children of the soil, filling the air with songs and laughter, and passed into the light. In a chair upon a table, his back against the black-gum, sat a little wrinkled fiddler with his battered instrument under his chin, the bow

twisting and sawing. And by his side, drumming on the strings with a straw, stood a boy, who ever and anon turned his head to laugh at some gay sally from the company gathered upon the smooth and well-trodden ground. A favorite dancer exhibited his skill until breathless, and was turning away amidst the plaudits of the crowd when a young woman forced her way in, crying:

"Git erway, niggers; lemme come!" The crowd shouted, "Lou, Lou!" "Lou 'ill knock de shine off er 'im." "You got ter shuffl' now, Beeswing."

The teeth of the young man who beat with the straw shone whiter and broader as a short, active girl broke into the circle. Beeswing grinned.

"Come back, nigger," she cried. The crowd laughed again, and as the girl's feet began to keep time with the music, a dozen hands patted upon as many thighs, and a voice, to which the chorus replied, added words to the strains of the fiddle, the dancer adapting her steps to the hints given:

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"Shuffl', littl' Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Same as you;
Pretty littl' Lou;
My gal too;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Forwood too;

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'Pretty littl' Lou;
Come 'long, Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Back step, Lou;

Pretty littl' Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Look at Lou!"

The dancer held her dress back and "walked

around," turning her toes in, and the crowd laughed. But the song continued:

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Pretty littl' Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Cross step, Lou;

"Pretty littl' Lou; Balunce too; Pretty littl' Lou."

cotton, revealing her ankles, and the leader The girl whirled around amidst a cloud of started the laugh by chiming in, followed by the refrain, again:

"Oom oom 00;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Short dog Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Pidgin wing Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;

"See yer froo;
Pretty littl' Lou;
Turkey trot Lou;
Pretty littl' Lou;

Shuff', littl' Lou;

Pretty littl' Lou;"

Beeswing broke out of the circle, and the dance ended amidst the shouts of the company.

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The men turned their partners with one hand held overhead, and "the lady " spun until her dress swelled out like a balloon. Then she bowed and the men patted quick time, all singing, while their partners sprang to the center and danced:

"Knock candy, Candy gal;
Knock candy, Candy gal;
No harm to knock candy;

Littl' in de wais' an' pretty in de face;
No harm to knock candy;

Two ways to knock Candy gal;
No harm to knock candy.'

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Several verses followed, first the women dancing, then the men, ever returning to the promenade song.

Dance followed dance, jig, shuffle, song, and refrain, and the hours glided by. A tiny silver crescent was the moon, but it had long since sunk behind the hill. Old Morris nodded, but his bow kept moving. "Wake up, old man," shouted a voice as the rout went round. "Hush yo' mouf, nigger," he answered back. "Dis fiddle knows me, an' hit 'u'd keep er-singin' ef I uz to go plum ter sleep"; and the livelier wave in "Sallie Gooden," which the interruption had stimulated, faded away into monotony again.

So went the night. But a gaunt specter stood unseen on the black bank piled up beyond the gum-tree. Into these old plantation dances, harmless once and picturesque, had come, with the new freedom, a new element. On the porch in the shadow, where he had rolled over unnoticed, stupid with drink, lay Ben Thomas, the host. A heavy, brawny negro, he seemed some forty years old when the stirred logs flashed a light upon him. At the far end of the little porch his young mulatto wife was tossing small coins amidst groups of men, who applauded when she won

and were silent when she lost. Suddenly the game ended, the woman empty-handed.

What stirred the sleeper? Who can tell? But stir he did, then waked, and gazed about him. The last throw of the coin attracted his attention. He felt in his pocket; then letting his feet to the ground, he staggered forward and supported his wavering form against a post. "Mandy," he said gently, and he seemed to sober as he spoke, "did you tek my money?"

"Yes," she laughed, "I did." Her tones were careless and defiant. "Whar hit, Mandy?"

"Whar you

reck'n ?"

"Whar hit, Mandy?" The man's voice was still calm. Silence had fallen on the group. "Los'."

"Oh, w'at yer mekin' er fuss erbout er littl' money fur? Ain' er man's wife got er right ter hit ef hit 's his 'n?" The speaker was a low-browed, vicious-looking negro, Mandy's late opponent. Ben did not notice him, but returned to his query:

"Who got dat money, Mandy?"

The gambler contemptuously threw three silver quarters into her lap, for she was still sitting.

"Heah, Mandy, I len' you nuff ter pay 'im. Dern er man w'at 'll 'buse es wife 'fo' folks, an' en 'er own house." The gambler looked around for indorsement, but got none. All eyes were upon the husband. He stooped forward and took the coins, placing them in his pocket.

"No man kin len' money ter my wife," he said gently, for the first time addressing the gambler; "an' hit ain' len'in' w'en money w'at 's stole comes back."

"Who stole hit? Who stole hit?" A savage look gleamed in the gambler's eye.

"Fuss she stole hit," said the husband, "an' den you stole hit; fur ter cheat er ooman es des same es stealin'."

Quick as the spring of a panther was the movement of the gambler as he threw himself upon the now sober man who had accused him. There was a brief struggle; the gambler clasped one hand over his breast and staggered. A knife dropped from his hand as he suddenly extended his arm, and with a deep sigh he sank lifeless in his tracks.

The crowd opened, letting the red firelight flood the scene. Ben stood with folded arms, gazing upon the corpse, but like a shadow falling, the woman glided from the low porch by the prostrate figure and snatched the bloody knife from the ground. For an instant she crouched, her yellow face upturned to her husband, a strange light in her eyes, and her

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long black hair tumbling down upon her shoulders. She seemed about to spring at his throat. But only for an instant. The knife vanished in the folds of her dress, and she pointed straight into the black depths of the swamp. Run, run!" she whispered. Ben gazed about him defiantly, then turned and strode away into the shadow. None pursued. His arms dropped as he disappeared, but no eye was strong enough to follow and see the faint flash of light that trembled for an instant upon the steel in his hands, like the glimmer of a glow-worm through the texture of a dead leaf that sheltered him.

The woman still crouched by the corpse, but she saw it not. Her eyes were fixed upon the shadow that had closed over her husband. Horror and fear seemed to have frozen her. The wondering group discussed the tragedy, and constructed a rude litter for the dead. But as they bore the body off, a man approached her and asked to see the knife. She turned her yellow face to his for an instant, then bounded by him and was swallowed up in the swamp. Forward she went through brake and bramble. A great gnarled oak reached out to stop her, but in vain; and from the grasp of the bushes that clutched her she rushed madly. Suddenly the silent stretch of a great lagoon was before her. She lifted her arm and frantically hurled the knife far out into the night. No sound came back, though she held her breath until her eyes started from their sockets. But yes, at last- a far, faint splash, as when a cooter glides from his log and seeks his couch in the slime below.

"Ben!" she whispered, "Ben!" There was no answer. "Ben!" This time it was a scream. A thousand echoes darted here and there in the sounding swamp, and as they died away a strange, sad sigh was wafted out of the depths. Turning, she fled back to life, pursued by a host of terrors. How she reached it she knew not, but presently she fell prostrate upon the floor of the cabin. Crouching there in the shadow was the aged form of her husband's mother, crooning to his babe. Neither spake, and lying on her face the young woman spent the remaining hours of the night. But ever and anon she heard the splash of the knife in the waters, the echoes calling "Ben," and that strange, sad sigh of the spirit as it left the dead man's body.

II.

WEEKS passed. The little brown baby fell to the care of its grandmammy. A spell was upon Mandy. With her long hair down upon her shoulders, elbows upon her knees, and face in her hands, she sat by the hour under the great black-gum, gazing down into the shad

owy depths of the swamp. With an intuition and refinement of kindness not uncommon to the race, the elder woman kept silent upon the events of that dreadful night. Not once did she refer to the tragedy, not once to the wild life of the young wife of which it was the culmination, wild, for it had been the same old story of mismated ages and foolish playing with fire. Quietly she had gone on doing the cooking and the washing, and the little brown baby, as she toiled, played with its rag doll and preached to the sleepy cat. When the baby cried for food she placed it in its mother's arms, where, as it lay, Mandy studied the round face vaguely. But no tear fell upon the child, and the old mammy wondered as she watched the two.

"Mandy ain' come 'roun' yit," she said to a neighbor once. "De Lord es 'flictin' her mighty hebby; but she'll come bimeby, she'll come bimeby." Yet the time seemed long.

One day, as thus they sat, the Rev. Kesiah Toomer, or "Unc' 'Siah," as he was called, leaned over the split-oak picket. His aged face, full of wrinkles, and its white eyebrows, beamed down kindly upon them.

"Mornin', Aunt Charlotte," he said, touching the battered old straw hat that kept the sun from his bald head and its kinky fringe of snowy hair; "how you do des mornin'?" His was a soft, flexible voice, full of conciliatory curves.

"I'm tolerable," replied the woman simply. "How Mandy?'

"She's tolerable." The young woman was dreaming into the depths, and heard nothing. "How littl' Ben?" "He's tolerable." "How Sis Harriet?" "She's tolerable."

"Yes 'm." Unc' 'Siah's face mellowed a little more, and he shifted his weight to the other foot.

"How you, Unc' 'Siah?"
"I'm tolerable, bless God!"
"How Phyllis?"

"She's tolerable."

"The chillun all got well?"
"Yes 'm, dey all tolerable."
"Won't yer come en an' res'?”

Unc' 'Siah replied by limping slowly into the yard. He had a leg that was stiff with rheumatism and gave him a painful-looking gait. He seated himself in the splint-bottom chair proffered him. For some time he was silent. Every now and then his eye rested upon the sleeping child and the brooding mother. Charlotte knew that he had something to say.

"You seen Ben?" she asked quietly. The old man stirred in his seat.

"Yes 'm," he said; "seen him yestiddy."

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