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The trees of the all-surrounding forest sweet-gums, water-oaks, magnolias cast their shade obliquely along and across his way, and wherever it fell the undried dew still sparkled on the long grass. A pervading whisper seemed to say good-by to the great human world. Scarce the note of an insect joined with his footsteps in the coarse herbage to break the stillness. He made no haste.

I entered them at once, and after a semicircular turn through the pleasant paths, amid live-oaks, water-oaks, red oaks, chestnut oaks, magnolias, beeches, hickories, hornbeams, sweet gums, sweet bays, and long-leaved and short-leaved pines, came out into the road again a quarter of a mile farther up the hill.

This was about 2 p.m. The enemy had one battery close by Shiloh, and another near the Hamburg road, both pouring grape and canister upon any column of troops that advanced upon the green point of water-oaks. Willich's regiment had been repulsed, but a whole brigade of McCook's division advanced beautifully, deployed, and entered this dreaded wood.

Here I saw Willich's regiment advance upon a point of water-oaks and thicket, behind which I knew the enemy was in great strength, and enter it in beautiful style. Then arose the severest musketry-fire I ever heard, and lasted some twenty minutes, when this splendid regiment had to fall back.

Flat and sandy, with miles on miles of straight pine timber, each tree an exact duplicate of its neighbor tree, and underneath the scrub palmettoes, the twisted brakes and hammocks, and the gnarled water-oaks festooned with the sad gray Spanish-moss truly not a country for a high-spirited race or moral giants.

This was about 2 p.m. The enemy had one battery close by Shiloh, and another near the Hamburg road, both pouring grape and canister upon any column of troops that advanced upon the green point of water-oaks. Willich's regiment had been repulsed, but a whole brigade of McCook's division advanced beautifully, deployed, and entered this dreaded wood.

A quadroon nurse followed them about with a faraway, meditative air. Mr. Pontellier finally lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting the paper drag idly from his hand. He fixed his gaze upon a white sunshade that was advancing at snail's pace from the beach. He could see it plainly between the gaunt trunks of the water-oaks and across the stretch of yellow camomile.

Three times in as many generations, the Manor House, as the rambling southern home had always been called, had been enlarged, but nothing was ever done which lessened the dignity lent by its fine colonial portico, the artistic columns of which could be seen miles down the river-road. The Manor House was good to see in its rare setting of stately water-oaks, now in their full maturity.

So swollen was the flood that from any deck of a steamboat touching there one might have looked down upon the whole fair still suburb. Widely it hovered in its nest of rose gardens, orange groves, avenues of water-oaks, and towering moss-draped pecans.

Back of the house was a long avenue of water-oaks leading to the quarters where the negroes lived. Major Waldron, the father of the children, owned a large number of slaves, and they loved him and his children very dearly.