noon
I was a widow who had sold her plantation in order to go and live with a widowed brother . Euonymus too I showed off , who , waking at every halt , presented a face that seemed any boy 's rather than a runaway 's . So natural to these Africans was the supernatural that I could be one of the men who plucked Lot from Sodom and yet a becurled widow . When at noon , at a farmhouse , we had fed horses and dined , I at the planter 's board , my `` slaves '' under the house-grove trees , Euonymus took the lines , and for five hours Luke slept inside . Then they changed places again , and Euonymus and I , face to face , watched the long hot day wane , and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight . Often I saw questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently , but I dared not encourage them ; dared not be a talkative angel . Also my brain had its questions .