Near the child was a wooden box, in
which were a coarse loaf of corn-bread and some strips of bacon, and a
wooden trough, hollowed out of a log, contained water. The woman's face
was scratched and bruised, and, as she came to some dental sounds in her
chant, her teeth were revealed, with several freshly missing in front,
and her lips were swollen and the gums blistered and raw.
She glanced up as Phoebus came in sight, looked at him a minute in
blank curiosity, as if she did not know what kind of animal he was, and
then continued her song, wearily, as if she had been singing it for
days, and her mind had gone into it and was out of her control. As she
moved her feet from time to time, the chain rattled upon her ankles.
"Well," said Jimmy, "if this ain't Pangymonum, I reckon I'll find it at
Johnson's Cross-roads! Git up thar, gal, an' let me see what ails you."
The woman rose mechanically, still singing in the shrill, cracked, weary
drone, and, as she rose, the baby awoke and began to cry, and she
stooped and took it up, and, patting it with her hands, sang on, as if
she would fall asleep singing, but could not.
The chain, strong and rusty, had been very recently welded to her feet
by a blacksmith; the fresh rivet attested that, and there were also
pieces of charcoal in the pine strewings, as if fire had been brought
there for smith's uses. Jimmy Phoebus took hold of the chain and
examined it link by link till it depended from a powerful staple driven
to the heart of the pine-tree; though rusty, it was perfect in every
part, and the condition of the staple showed that it was permanently
retained in its position, as if to secure various and successive
persons, while the staple itself had been driven above the reach of the
hands, as by a man standing on some platform or on another's shoulders.
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