Her world of signs and portents and conjurations lay about her as familiar as her children’s faces, or the grass before her door. It touched her at every point and turn of her daily life. And then one day I impulsively clashed through it and shook its foundations. I was passing Sam’s cabin, when I saw, grouped at the roadside spring, Coretta, the children, and a young man who was holding the baby and lifting his shoe--yes, lifting his _shoe_ to the baby’s mouth! “Wait!” I cried, with a suddenness that made the strange young man drop the shoe, though luckily he retained the baby. Coretta began to explain. “The baby’s got the thrash, an’ I ain’t got time to take her all the way to old Uncle Dean Larky’s for him to blow in her mouth.” “Blow in her mouth? That toothless old man!” “He’s got the power in his breath. Jest blows in her mouth an’ says the three highest words in the Bible. But I couldn’t go so fur, an’ I’ve been watchin’ for Zeb Austin to pass. He’s black-eyed, you know.” I saw that the young man was black-eyed--at that moment rather flashingly, hostilely black-eyed. Whether a magician benignly engaged, or a fool caught in his act, the interruption called for resentment. Coretta was still explaining. “If a baby’s got the thrash, an’ a black-eyed man person gives her a drink out of his right shoe, it’ll cure the worst case as ever was.” “Give me the baby,” said I. She was handed to me. I walked off, up the hill, where I could get a view of the broad valley and a sky clear with sunlight--as clear and welcome as the dry light of science. Coretta followed. “What’s the matter, Mis’ Dolly?” “Lies!” “Don’t you believe it’ll cure her?” “No.” “Don’t you believe--any o’ them things?” “No.” “Give me my baby!” The arrogant world of mind, for all its embattled glitter, surrendered to the physical fact of motherhood. I gave her the baby. It was two weeks before I saw Coretta. The day was warm; I had been circling about a hot stove for hours, canning blueberries, and had thrown off my slippers for stockinged comfort. Coretta came into the yard just as I stepped to the door. “Don’t move,” she called, beginning to run. “Don’t move till I git your shoes! Ever’ step you take is a step in trouble.” Aghast, I obeyed her. When the shoes were brought, and on my feet, she looked up triumphantly. “I _knew_ you wasn’t so unbelievin’ as you let on.” And my surprised and chastened soul agreed. II