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She rode along the fence until she came to an opening which led into what appeared in the darkness to be another cotton field, but proved to be a worn-out one, long ago abandoned to the rank-growing briars, which clung to and tore her skirts, and seamed the mare's delicate skin with bleeding furrows.
Rank-growing weeds covered the ground two or three feet high; all the houses and residences had been gutted by fire, everything combustible burned, leaving a terrible litter.
At the first stroke of the bell all the villagers were awake, and from half-opened doors and windows they took in the scene which the light of the moon and the glare of the crackling fire revealed. Then dusky-skinned forms stole hastily away into the shadows of the houses and fences, and through the rank-growing corn of the little truck-patches, to the woods and fields in the rear.
Stooping here and there, she carefully trimmed the rank-growing geraniums and the clusters of chrysanthemums, cut off the straggling branches of the mignonette and removed every passing bloom of harebell, heartsease, and heliotrope. Chigwin used her scissors with a too unsparing hand. But the happy old soul knew what she was about.
In places the ground was almost covered with meadow-rue, like green shadows on the hillsides, not yet in seed, but richly umbrageous. In the long green grass of the meadows shone the yellow star-flowers, and the sweet-flags were blooming along the marshy edges of the ponds. The violets had disappeared, but they were succeeded by wild geraniums and rank-growing vetches.
Nimbus heard it, and stooping over his insensible friend, raised him in his arms and dashed around the cabin into the rank-growing corn beyond. His wife followed for a few steps, still carrying the axe. Then she turned and peered through the corn-rows, determined to cover her husband's retreat should danger threaten him from that direction.
The low house was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, and Madeira vines.
The sun was down what time they left the hill country and came out upon a wide heath void of trees and desolate, where was a wind cold and clammy to chill the flesh, where rank-growing rush and reed stirred fitfully, filling the dark with stealthy rustlings.
No rise of the Mississippi above, however high, affects the bar here in the least perceptible degree. Heaven send us well into blue water! for any place having a more desolate aspect than this sight never lighted on: not a sign of vegetation is visible, except the brown rank-growing reeds upon our right, where no fire has yet been.
Near me on one side was an irregular row of poplar-trees, and the long, dark lines cast from them by the moon fell across a wide, open space where the rank-growing thorn-apples predominated. In the spaces between the broad bands made by the poplar-tree shadows, the foliage appeared of a dim, hoary blue, starred over with the white blossoms of this night-flowering weed.
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