The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays

e saw, bathed in the sunlight, a field of corn, just in the ear, stretching for half a mile, its yellow, pollen-laden tassels overtopping the dark green mass of broad gliste

n girl, in a homespun frock, swinging a slat-bon

ely!" sh

d in a resonant voice, vibr

, gr

as, chile, fer yo' gran'daddy's gwi

at her bare feet seemed to spurn the earth as they struck it; that though brown, she was not so brown but that her cheek was darkly red with the blood of another race than that whic

between the rows of corn, until it vanished in the distant perspective. The peas were planted beside alternate hills of corn, the cornstalks serving as supports for the climbing pea-vines. The vines nearest the house

g she had found. As she walked down the corn-row she ran over in her mind the various things with which she had always associated happiness. Had she found a gold ring? No, it was not a gold ring-of that she felt sure. Was it a soft, curly plume for her hat? She had seen town people with them, and had indulged in day-dreams on the subject; but

e had by forgetting it lost the pleasure of anticipation. If her dream had been one of those that go by contraries, the warning would be in vain, because she would not know against what evil to pr

ail fence, she saw a brier bush loaded with large, luscious blackberries. Cicely was fond of blackberries, so she set h

at her granddaddy would like a blackberry pudding for dinner. Catching up her apron, and using it as

e. In a moment the sound was repeated, and, gauging the point from which it came, she plunged resolutely into the thick

ttle could be seen of the underlying integument. What was visible showed a skin browned by nature or by exposure. His hands were of even a darker brown, almost as dark as Cicely's own. A tangled mass of very curly black hair, matted with burs, dank with dew, and clotted with

y a gourd at the spring, but now it was gone. Pouring out the blackberries in a little heap where they could be found again, she took off her apron, dipped one end of it into the spring, and ran back to the wounded man. The apron was clean, and she squeezed a little stream of water

" she said to herself. "I recko

ment on a fallen tree trunk, to think what she should do next. The man already seem

big house, an' dey 'd take keer of 'im. If he 's a black man, I oughter go tell granny. He don' look lack a black man somehow er nuther, an' yet he don' look lack a w'ite

toward the house. Her short skirt did not impede her progress, and in a few minutes she had covered the half mile and w

wn a black bottle from a high shelf, and set out with

young man-a young man whiter than she and yet not all white-and that he had loved her and courted her and married her. Her dream had been all the sweeter because in it

dream-lore, just what event was foreshadowed by a dream of finding a wounded man. If the wounded man were of her own race, her dream would thus far have been realized, and having met the young man, the other joys might be exp