Big House, once the proud home of the plantation masters, is now an old crumbling shell with broken chimneys and a rotting roof. Ghosts can be heard at sunset rattling the closed window-blinds up-stairs, as they strive for a glimpse of the shining river that shows between the tall cedars and magnolias.
The earth's richness and the sun's warmth make living an easy thing. Years go by without leaving a mark or footprint. Sometimes black years come in determined to break the tranquil monotony. Earthquakes tumble down chimneys, storms break trees and houses, floods wash the earth so bare that its very bones are exposed, droughts burn up crops and weeds with impartial cruelty, but the old plantation is swift to hide every scar made by all this wickedness. New chimneys are quickly built and houses mended; trees thrust up young branches to fill empty spaces; new crops and weeds thrive under gentle rains and hot sunshine.
Life fills and enfolds everything here, never overlooking in the press of work to be done the smallest or most insignificant creature, and silently, with weariless patience and diligence, strange miracles are wrought as youth rises out of decay and death becomes only another beginning.
