The Great Meadow [antikvár]

i774> anc* Diony, in the spring, hearing Sam, her brother, scratching at a tune on the fiddle, hearing him break a song over the taut wires and fling out with his voice to supply all that the tune lacked, placed herself momentarily in life, calling mentally her name, Diony Hall. "I, Diony Hall," her thought said, gathering herself close, subtracting herself from the diífused life of the house that closed about her. Sam was singing, flinging the song free of the worried strings, making a very good tune of it: There was a ship sailed for the North Amer-i-kee- Crying, O the lonesome lowlands low- There was a ship sailed for the North Amer-i-kee, And she went by the name of the Golden Van-i-tee, And she sailed from the lowlands low. . . . "I, Diony Hall," her hands said back to her thought, her fingers knitting wool. Beyond her spread the floor which was of hard smooth wood, and beyond again arose the walls of the house, and outside reached the clearings of the plantation, Five Oaks the name her father called it by. Then came the trees and the rolling hills of Albemarle County and the 3