“I never could make out ’tween ’em. The Unionists, they wanted to free the black people, but the Unionists here in the mountains didn’t favor ’em. So I never could git it clear. Anyway, Uncle Sim was a good man. I’ve heard granpap tell about him many a night. The men, when they found him, cut down a tree an’ hewed out some puncheons fer a coffin, an’ made Uncle Sim sit on it an’ play his fiddle. He could play the best that ever was, an’ they say he played up fine that night. They kept him playin’ till near daylight; then they shot him, an’ his wife an’ childern lookin’ right on. I used to cry, hearin’ granpap tell it, out in Madison, but it don’t make me feel bad now, ’cause I know folks are better than what they were them days.” Such naïveté was possible in the period of our national innocence, before “the boys” began to drift back home with certain truths on their tongue. “Looky! the rain’s stopped quicker’n it come. We can go right back, fer the ridge dreens off soon as the water strikes it. Ain’t it cool, an’ the air like gold!” She tried to catch a handful of it to show me its quality. We went back, and in a minute, as she said, our buckets were full, though we lost a few seconds while I learned of Serena how to cap and pick at the same time. Then we started along the ridge to the gap where we had entered the field. Walking back, I lingered to pluck a giant white trillium that shone from the fringe of wood. No loss to the forest; there were thousands more lighting up the cove farther down. As I came out of the wood, the air over the field seemed visibly to precipitate some of its gold. A swarm--no, the word is too heavy for anything so delicately bodied--a band of butterflies, moving in a slow wave over the ridge, had at that moment broken into myriads of distinct flakes--a shattered blaze. Nearer, their gold became tinily specked, and showed flashes and fringes of pearl; the silver-bordered fritillaries, perhaps, or some kin of theirs. I started to call Serena, but paused softly, for she was gazing over the mountains, having her “look.” I was left to the butterflies. Were they as unconscious of their grubby origin as they seemed, holding no memory of a life bounded by a sassafras twig, or of the cove behind us where a violet leaf may have been both food and heaven? The butterfly ought to be the symbol on every Christian’s flag. It is the perfect pietist. Its confidence in the Infinite is as patent as its wings. Serena, amid that airy fluttering, seemed, in her own shining way, the sovereign of the band. Deep as piety was her trust in the morrow. Food would come to her, raiment would be found. The butterflies floated past, becoming a dim, coppery tremble in the shade of the valley. Serena was still gazing in the distance. At last I said that we must be going; Len was expecting his pie. “These berries ain’t goin’ into a pie,” she answered. “They’re worth more than a pie’ll come to. They’re goin’ into jam.”