He got up, adjusted his brake, which was the strong fork of a limb chained to a log, fixed his bolt upright, set his adze carefully, and with precise restraint evenly separated a smooth, shining three-foot board from the rest of the bolt. From the splitting wood came an odor that must have been the essence of the forest condensed for generations into its living vase. But granpap was not pleased with his work. “Did you see how tough that was? When I do git a good board I have to tear it out. But it’s nateral for the south side of a tree to be tough.” “Don’t you mean the north side, granpap?” “No,” he said patiently. “It’s the sun that toughens wood. You’ll see them bolts from the north side are brickle.” He balanced the board disapprovingly. “Look how narr’ it is. By the time I’ve sapped this there won’t be enough of it left to turn a rain-drap.” He began to chip off the inch of white sap-wood along the edge of the board. “I could ’a’ cast out the snirly blocks, but it was the wind-shake that finally ruined me. I never counted on a wind-shake in a tree as proud as that.” “Show me the wind-shake, granpap.” “Look at this block, here in the crosscut, an’ you’ll see it. A wind-shake starts at the heart an’ twists round and round, gettin’ bigger and bigger an’ breakin’ the wood as it goes, till thar’s only enough left for a little narr’ board ’tween the shake-rings and the bark. Then sometimes, when the tree weaves in the wind, you can hear it cry. If I’d ’a’ listened at this tree in a high wind it couldn’t ’a’ fooled me. But they never make no sign on the outside.” “Granpap,” I began slowly. He looked up, met my eyes, and laid down his axe. “Don’t you think some people are like that?” I was trembling. If he failed me now, the line of Merlin would be extinct. There would be no more seers in the Unakas, or anywhere. “Ay,” he said. He still used the “ay” of Westmoreland and the hills of Malvern. “Ay, Cyn was like that after Ben got killed.” He thought my silence was the silence of sympathy, and in alarm took up his axe. “’Tain’t no use to----” The axe finished the sentence, slicing a curl of white sap-bark. But his face was a shade grayer. The tree was avenged. I started on, thinking of all the Cyns and Bens I had known; and of a gay friend, now fallen, who liked to assure me that “A heart is known by the autopsy.” My foot turned up a boss of sweet turf. A broken heart makes as good loam as a sound one, I thought. And I would have gone down the slope singing in the face of a looming to-morrow, if only granpap had not been standing so still. II CORETTA AND AUTUMN I