and when he spoke the trees shook and the stars fell. Even mammy was afeared; and it takes a lot to make mammy afeared, ‚Äôcause she‚Äôs a witch and can conjure. He said, ‚ÄòI‚Äôll come when you die‚ÅÝ‚ÄîI‚Äôll come when you die, and take the conjure off you,‚Äô and then he went away on a big fire.‚Äù
“Shucks!” the boy would say, trying to express scornful disbelief when, in truth, he was awed and doubtful. Always he would glance involuntarily back along the path behind him. Then her low birdlike laughter would rise and ring through the trees.
So passed a year, and there came the time when her wayward teasing and the almost painful thrill of her tale-telling nettled him and drove him away. For long months he did not meet her, until one day he saw her deep eyes fixed longingly upon him from a thicket in the swamp. He went and greeted her. But she said no word, sitting nested among the greenwood with