When she awoke she was in a strange place. Outside the umbrella all was dusk and shadow. Only a square white mist filled the place of the barn, the tall trees loomed vaguely toward the dark sky, the stars were few. As she gazed in half-terror about her, a strange jangling came nearer and nearer, and a great animal with swinging sides, panting terribly, ran clumsily by, followed by a bare-legged boy, whose thudding feet sounded loud on the beaten path. Ardelia shrank against the wall with a cry that brought Mrs. Slater to her side. “There, there, Delia, it’s only a cow. She won’t hurt you. She gives the milk—” Ardelia shuddered—“and the butter, too. Here’s some bread and butter for you. We’ve had our supper, but I thought the sleep would do you more good.” Still shaken by the shock of that panting, hairy beast, Ardelia put out her hand for the bread and butter, and ate it greedily. Then she stretched her cramped limbs and looked over the umbrella. On the porch sat a bearded man in shirt-sleeves and stocking feet, his head thrown back against his chair, his mouth open. He snored audibly. Tipped back in another chair, his feet raised and pressed against one of the supports of the porch roof, sat a younger man. He was not asleep, for he was smoking a pipe, but he was as motionless as the other. Curled up on the steps was the boy who had brought them from the station. Occasionally he patted a mongrel collie beside him, and yawning, stretched himself, but he did not speak. “That’s Mr. Slater,” said the woman softly, “and the young man is my oldest son, William. Henry brought you up with the team. They’re out in the field all day, and they get pretty tired. It gets nice an’ cool out here by evenin’, don’t it?” She leaned back and rocked silently to and fro, and Ardelia waited for the events of the evening. There were none. She wondered why the gas was not lit in all that shadowy darkness, why the people didn’t come along. She felt scared and lonely. Now that her stomach was filled, and her nerves refreshed by her long sleep, she was in a condition to realize that aside from all bodily discomfort she was sad—very sad. A new, unknown depression weighed her down. It grew steadily, something was happening, something constant and mournful—what? Suddenly she knew. It was a steady, recurrent noise, a buzzing, monotonous click. Now it rose, now it fell, accentuating the silence dense about it. “_Zig-a-zig! Zig-a-zig!_” then a rest. “_Zig-a-zig! Zig-a-zig-a-zig!_” She looked restlessly at Mrs. Slater. “Wha’s ’at?” she said. “That? Oh, those are katydids. I s’pose you never heard ’em, that’s a fact. Kind o’ cozy, I think. Don’t you like ’em?” “Naw,” said Ardelia.