"I don't know. I think a snail must have made more progress since the war than I have." The idea of his uselessness seemed to weigh on him, for a little later he remarked, with a sort of mortified smile: "Do you think, Peter, that we would pass for what they call representative men of the New South?" "We done _had_ ou' day, Marse Rom," replied Peter. "We got to pass fur what we _wuz_. Mebbe de _Lohd's_ got mo' use fur us yit 'n _people_ has," he added, after a pause. From this time on the colonel's strength gradually failed him; but it was not until the following spring that the end came. A night or two before his death his mind wandered backward, after the familiar manner of the dying, and his delirious dreams showed the shifting, faded pictures that renewed themselves for the last time on his wasting memory. It must have been that he was once more amid the scenes of his active farm life, for his broken snatches of talk ran thus: "Come, boys, get your cradles! Look where the sun is! You are late getting to work this morning. That is the finest field of wheat in the county. Be careful about the bundles! Make them the same size and tie them tight. That swath is too wide, and you don't hold your cradle right, Tom.... "Sell _Peter_! _Sell Peter Cotton!_ No, sir! You might buy _me_ some day and work _me_ in your cotton-field; but as long as he's mine, you can't buy Peter, and you can't buy any of _my_ negroes.... "Boys! boys! If you don't work faster, you won't finish this field to-day.... You'd better go in the shade and rest now. The sun's very hot. Don't drink too much ice-water. There's a jug of whisky in the fence-corner. Give them a good dram around, and tell them to work slow till the sun gets lower."... Once during the night a sweet smile played over his features as he repeated a few words that were part of an old rustic song and dance. Arranged, not as they came broken and incoherent from his lips, but as he once had sung them, they were as follows: "O Sister Phœbe! How merry were we When we sat under the juniper-tree, The juniper-tree, heigho! Put this hat on your head! Keep your head warm; Take a sweet kiss! It will do you no harm, Do you no harm, I know!" After this he sank into a quieter sleep, but soon stirred with a look of intense pain. "Helen! Helen!" he murmured. "Will you break your promise? Have you changed in your feelings towards me? I have brought you the pinks. Won't you take the pinks, Helen?" Then he sighed as he added, "It wasn't her fault. If she had only known--" Who was the Helen of that far-away time? Was this the colonel's love-story? But during all the night, whithersoever his mind wandered, at intervals it returned to the burden of a single strain--the harvesting. Towards daybreak he took it up again for the last time: