When Jérôme Lafirme died, his neighbors awaited the results of his sudden taking off withindolent watchfulness. It was a matter of unusual interest to them that a plantation of four thousandacres had been left unincumbered to the disposal of a handsome, inconsolable, childless Creolewidow of thirty. A bêtise of some sort might safely be looked for. But time passing, the anticipatedfolly failed to reveal itself; and the only wonder was that Thérèse Lafirme so successfully followedthe methods of her departed husband.Of course Thérèse had wanted to die with her Jérôme, feeling that life without him held nothingthat could reconcile her to its further endurance. For days she lived alone with her grief; shutting outthe appeals that came to her from the demoralized "hands," and unmindful of the disorder thatgathered about her. Till Uncle Hiram came one day with a respectful tender of sympathy, offered inthe guise of a reckless misquoting of Scripture-and with a grievance."Mistuss," he said, "I 'lowed 'twar best to come to de house an' tell you; fur Massa he alluz didsay 'Hi'urm, I counts on you to keep a eye open endurin' my appersunce;' you ricollic, marm?"addressing an expanse of black bordered cambric that veiled the features of his mistress. "Things is agoin' wrong; dat dey is. I don't wants to name no names 'doubt I'se 'bleeged to; but dey done start akiarrin' de cotton seed off de place, and dats how."If Hiram's information had confined itself to the bare statement of things "goin' wrong," suchintimation, of its nature vague and susceptible of uncertain interpretation, might have failed to rouseThérèse from her lethargy of grief. But that wrong doing presented as a tangible abuse and defianceof authority, served to move her to action. She felt at once the weight and sacredness of a trust, whose acceptance brought consolation and awakened unsuspected powers of doing.In spite of Uncle Hiram's parting prediction "de cotton 'll be a goin' naxt" no more seed washauled under cover of darkness from Place-du-Bois.The short length of this Louisiana plantation stretched along Cane River, meeting the water whenthat stream was at its highest, with a thick growth of cotton-wood trees; save where a narrowconvenient opening had been cut into their midst, and where further down the pine hills started inabrupt prominence from the water and the dead level of land on either side of them.