Chapter 30

It was not a gay scene; solemn pines, fields of standing November corn bleached white, among the ghostly stalks of which roamed scraggy cattle and misbegotten hogs; frost-ravaged fields of weeds, swamps, pines, more swamps, more pines, more desolate corn-fields, more cattle, more razor-backs. And here and there a negro or a flock of crows. And everywhere the three inevitables,—a China-tree, an Asia-tree, and a hound-dog scratching the industrious Southern flea. “I love this country,” remarked Maddaleen innocently. …